
Qass. 







Book. 




LoTigacre So 



^mexic a : 



THE LIFE 



OF 



REV. HENRY MARTYN. 



WRITTEN FOR THE AMERICAN SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION, 



BY JOHN HALL. 



WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF ABDOOL MESSEEH, 
A HINDOO CONVERT. 



REVISED BY THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION. 




AMERICAN SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION. 
PHILADELPHIA : 

NO. 146 CHESNUT STREET. 

1832. 



■$£%\ 



,t\' 



o5 



IBntzxzXi according to the ^ct of (Eottflress in the year 
1831, by Paul Beck, Jr. Treasurer, in trust for the American 
Sunday School Union, in the Clerk's Office of the District 
Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



0" 

I 



PREFACE. 



This volume has been principally compiled from 
the tenth English edition of the Memoirs of Mr. 
Martyn, by the Rev. John Sargent. 

The author of the present publication has endea- 
voured to present his subject in a manner which 
may not mislead the young, in forming their esti- 
mate of Christian character, and to propose the 
humble missionary, as an imitable example, rather 
than an object of vague and curious admiration. 
To effect this design, he has avoided, as much as 
possible, the use of terms of personal eulogy ; in 
hopes that the perusal of the biography will leave 
upon the youthful reader a deeper impression of 
the indispensable need of Divine power, to enable 
any creature to lead a useful and holy life. Chil- 
dren are taught, at least by implication, to believe, 
that the eminent instances of piety and zeal, which 
are recorded both in sacred and ordinary history, 
are exceptions to the doctrine of Christ, who 
directed his disciples to say — even after they should 
have done " all those things which were com- 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

manded — we are unprofitable servants f we have 
done that which was our duty to do." This 
course is likely not only to create an illusion which 
more mature knowledge will but imperfectly dissi- 
pate, but to diminish the splendor of the single 
example of perfect righteousness which has blessed 
our world. Its tendency, moreover, is to foster 
that hidden corruption of religious vanity in the 
heart of the young Christian, which usually needs 
no extraneous aid to assist it in impeding the 
growth of grace. 

It would seem, that the Memoirs of a Christian 
should be rather adapted to instruct the living, than 
to applaud the dead ; and it is surprising that so 
few works of the kind are extant, prepared with 
evangelical discrimination. It is especially im- 
portant that this principle should be regarded in 
biographies designed for pupils in Sunday schools ; 
and it would be a new honor to the institution, if 
the productions in this department, which claim 
their patronage, should be marked by this rare 
moral distinction. 



THE LIFE 

OF 

HENRY MARTYN. 



CHAPTER I. 

The father of Henry Martyn was a workman in 
the tin mines of Cornwall, in England. As the 
miners worked very deep in the earth, shut 
out from the light of the sun, and breathing an 
unwholesome air, it was their custom to labour 
four hours, and then to spend the same length of 
time in resting. During these hours of rest, John 
Martyn devoted himself to improving his education, 
which had been very slight ; and by his industrious 
application, he soon became so well acquainted 
with arithmetic, that he was at length engaged as 
clerk, by a merchant in the town of Truro, in the 
county of Cornwall. The conduct of this man is 
an example to all persons whose occupations afford 
them any leisure. There is scarcely any one who 
is so constantly occupied, as not to have some time 
in the week, for the improvement of his mind 
Had John Martyn made no exertion to supply his 
want of early instruction, he would probably 
a2 5 



6 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYX. 

have wasted ,his life in the miserable toil of 
digging ore, in the unwholesome depths of the 
mines. But by employing his spare time in learn- 
ing, instead of wasting it in idleness and intemper- 
ance, he was soon enabled to maintain his family 
respectably, and to save his children from the evils 
of ignorance, by giving them a good education. 

Henry, his third child, the subject of this 
volume, was born at Truro, on the 18th of Feb- 
ruary, 1781, and before he was eight years old, 
was put under the charge of an excellent school- 
master. At school he was remarkable for the gen- 
tleness of his disposition ; yet he was not a general 
favourite with his school-fellows, as, owing to the 
mildness of his spirit, he was not inclined to engage 
in their sports, and was fond of quiet. After spend- 
ing seven years at this school, his father sent him 
to the city of Oxford, hoping that he would be 
admitted as a student in one of the colleges of the 
celebrated university at that place, and be supported 
by funds which are raised for that purpose, called 
scholarships. From the boys who apply for ad- 
mission on these terms, the most promising scholars 
are selected ; but Henry had not been very studious, 
and, though some of his examiners were in favour of 
electing him, he did not succeed. He afterwards 
considered this failure as a great mercy ; for had he 
been thrown, when not fifteen years of age, into the 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 7 

evil company which he would then have met with 
at college, he might have become dissolute beyond 
recovery. He returned to his school, and remained 
under the same teacher, until he entered St. John's 
college, in the university of Cambridge, in October, 
1797. 

Ambitious to be distinguished, and anxious to 
gratify his father, he applied himself diligently 
to study during his stay in college. He was 
moral and amiable in his conduct, excepting that 
his temper, which was usually very mild, was 
sometimes irritated to an improper degree, and 
led him, as unrestrained passions always lead 
those who indulge them, to hasty and dangerous 
conduct Excellent as his outward character was, 
it was not so because he was anxious to fulfil his 
duty to God, who requires purity of heart and life 
from all his intelligent creatures. And he was so 
insensible, at this time, to the fact, that God most 
justly claims that every being should live to his 
glory, that he thought it a very strange doctrine, 
when a pious friend told him that he ought to attend 
to his studies, not for the sake of gaining praise 
from man, but that he might be the better qualified to 
promote the glory of God. He could not, however, 
but acknowledge that it was entirely reasonable, 
and determined that he would hold and maintain 
this opinion, but never once meant that it should 



8 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

govern his conduct. Of course, his holding a cor- 
rect opinion, without acting accordingly, was worth 
nothing, and only increased his sinfulness ; as he 
continued to follow his own ambition, after he was 
convinced that God rightfully claimed all his ser- 
vices. Thus, many persons are well acquainted 
with the history, doctrines, and commands of the 
holy scriptures, who do not live according to what 
they require, and aggravate their guilt, because 
they sin wilfully, after knowing the truth. And 
thus many believe all that is in the scriptures, 
as they believe what is written in other books ; but 
that belief or faith, only, is of any value to a man, 
which causes him to receive the truth in his heart, 
as well as in his memory ; to live according to its 
requirements, and to obey the commandment, " re- 
pent and believe4n the Lord Jesus Christ;" which 
is just as binding on the whole human family, as any 
of the ten commandments which were given at 
Sinai. 

The great desire of Martyn's heart was to excel 
at college, and to be foremost in his class, and this 
ambition occupied his mind so entirely, that he 
lived without God, and as if the world had been 
created for his honor, instead of the Maker's. His 
wishes and aims were all selfish ; he envied and 
even hated those who, by greater industry or talents, 
attained to more distinction than he could reach, 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 9 

whilst, in his pride, he considered himself superior 
to all, and professed to regard them with contempt. 
These unholy feelings were so much increased by 
his disappointment in not gaining as high honours 
as he aspired to, that upon a visit to his home 
during a vacation, he used disrespectful language to 
his father, when he would express opinions differ- 
ing from his own. When he became a penitent, 
and looked back to this period, he exclaimed, " Oh 
what an example of patience and mildness was he ! I 
love to think of his excellent qualities, and it is fre- 
quently the anguish of my heart, that I ever could be 
so base and wicked, as to pain him by the slightest 
neglect. Oh my God and Father, why is not my 
heart doubly agonized at the remembrance, of all 
my transgressions against Thee, ever since I have 
known Thee as such !" — During this same visit, 
which was the last time he saw his father, his pious 
sister often spoke to him on the subject of reli- 
gion ; but he confessed, that the sound of the gospel, 
thus tenderly accompanied with the admonitions 
of a sister, was grating to his ears. Yet he could 
not escape the conviction that she spoke the truth, 
when she urged its claims upon him ; but then it 
required him to sacrifice his selfish ambition, and 
this was too dear an object to give up. He pro- 
mised to read the Bible, but when he reached col- 
lege, his studies filled all his thoughts. 



10 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

Notwithstanding the fact, which he afterwards 
acknowledged, that during his stay at home the 
wickedness of his heart rose to a greater height than 
at any other time, yet the change which soon after- 
wards took place in him, seems to have been con- 
nected with the peculiar state of his circumstances 
and feelings at that period. At an examination 
after his return to college, his ambition attained its 
object, and he was pronounced first in his class. 
A few weeks afterwards, he received information 
of the sudden death of his father. This was a great 
affliction to him, and was more severe, as it hap- 
pened in the midst of his triumph, and brought to 
his remembrance the acts of filial disrespect which 
his evil passions had led him so lately to commit. 
Finding that in this state of mind, he could take no 
pleasure in his usual studies, he resorted to his 
Bible, under the impression that its perusal would 
be more suitable to his present feelings. In this 
new direction of his inquiries he was encouraged 
by his pious friend at college, and commenced 
reading Luke's narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, 
as the most entertaining part of the New Testa- 
ment. This led him gradually to examine the 
doctrines of those holy men ; and the duty of 
religion, in the circumstances of his affliction, made 
this much of an impression, that he began to use 
prayers, and to ask formally for pardon, though he 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 11 

had little sense of his sinfulness. His heart was 
evidently softened by the occurrence of his father's 
death ; and the admonitions and prayers of his sis- 
ter, with the convictions of his own judgment, dis- 
posed him to pay attention to the subject, from which 
he was not violently drawn away, as formerly, by 
his pursuit of fame, having now reached the high- 
est station to which he could attain in his class. 
But his pride caused him to shrink from the hu- 
mility which every sinner must feel before he can 
come to the Saviour : so little did he yet know his 
own heart ; for the man who truly feels the condi- 
tion in which he stands in the sight of a Supreme 
Being, infinitely great, infinitely holy, infinitely 
just, against whose laws, and mercy, and goodness, 
he has sinned without excuse, cannot but be hum- 
ble when he becomes acquainted with his true 
character. 

Such was the apparent commencement of the 
influence of the Holy Spirit on Martyn's heart ; and 
although on his return to Cambridge, those sacred 
impressions were in danger of being destroyed by 
his diligent application to the study of mathematics, 
which once more threatened to engage his whole 
attention, yet the divine mercy preserved him in 
the trial. Some passages in a letter written to 
his sister at this period, show that religion 
must have entered into his daily thoughts, and that 



12 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

he was already brought to see the reasonableness 
and beauty of spiritual devotion. - 

" What a blessing it is for me, that I have such 
a sister as you, my dear S — , who have been so 
instrumental in keeping me in the right way. When 
I consider how little human assistance you have 
had, and the great knowledge to which you have 
attained on the subject of religion, especially ob- 
serving the extreme ignorance of the most wise and 
learned of this world, I think this is itself a proof 
of the wonderful influence of the Holy Ghost on 
the minds of well-disposed persons. It is certainly 
by the Spirit alone that we can have the .will, or 
power, or knowledge, or confidence to pray ; and 
by Him alone we come unto the Father through 
Jesus Christ. ' Through Him we both have access 
by one Spirit unto the Father.' How I rejoice to 
find that we disagreed only about words ! I did 
not doubt, as you suppose, at all about that joy 
which true believers feel. Can there be any one 
subject, any one source of cheerfulness and joy, at 
all to be compared with the heavenly serenity and 
comfort which such a person must find in holding 
communion with his God and Saviour in prayer ; 
in addressing God as his Father, and more than all, 
in the transporting hope of being preserved unto 
everlasting life, and of singing praises to his Re- 
deemer when time shall be no more ? Oh ! I do 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 13 

indeed feel this state, of mind at times ; but at 
other times I feel quite humbled at finding myself 
so cold and hard-hearted That reluctance to 
prayer, that unwillingness to come unto God, who 
is the fountain of all good, when reason and experi- 
ence tell us, that with him only true pleasure is to 
be found, seem to be owing to Satanic influence. " 

After mentioning that his mathematical studies 
required such deep thought as to exclude, for the 
time, every other subject from the mind, and that 
they were, on this account, very dangerous to him, 
he speaks in the same letter of the beginning of his 
religious feelings. 

" After the death of our father, you know I was 
extremely low-spirited ; and, like most other peo- 
ple, began to consider seriously, without any par- 
ticular determination, that invisible world to which 
he was gone, and to which I must one day go. 
Yet I still read the Bible unenlightened ; and said 
a prayer or two rather through terror of a superior 
power than from any other cause. Soon, however, 
I began to attend more diligently to the words of 
our Saviour in the New Testament, and to devour 
them with delight ; when the offers of mercy and 
forgiveness were made so freely, I supplicated to 
be made partaker of the covenant of grace with 
eagerness and hope : and thanks be to the ever- 
blessed Trinity for not leaving me without comfort. 
B 



14 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

Throughout the whole, however, even when the 
light of divine truth was beginning to dawn on my 
mind, I was. not under that great terror of future 
punishment, which I now see plainly I had every 
reason to feel : I look back ntiw upon that course 
of wickedness which, like a gulf of destruction, 
yawned to swallow me up, with a trembling delight, 
mixed with shame at having lived so long in igno- 
rance, and error, and blindness. I could say much 
more, but I have no more room. I have only to 
express my acquiescence in most of your opinions, 
and to join with you in gratitude to God. for his 
mercies to us : may he preserve you and me and 
all of us to the day of the Lord !" 



CHAPTER II. 

Still the desire of applause, and the ambition 
of distinction as a scholar, that great temptation of 
ardent youth, kept him from making much progress 
in the infinitely more important study of divine 
truth. His heart was still destitute of humility, 
and he was not yet sensible of the real vanity 
of human pursuits. This lesson, however, the 
providence of God taught him in the manner which, 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 15 

of all others, would make the deepest impression 
on such a mind as his. It was not until he received 
the highest honours of college, in January 1801, 
that he felt that temporal gratifications cannot satisfy 
the desires of the soul. " I obtained my highest 
wishes," he said, "but was surprised to find, that I 
grasped a shadow." He felt a disappointment 
which astonished himself, that the great object for 
which he had laboured so hard, and sacrificed so 
much, and which had caused him even to neglect the 
interest which he had in eternity, should now seem 
as vain and unsatisfying, as if he had been toiling 
to pursue a shadow ! Happy is the youth who will 
not wait for experience to convince him that this is 
a truth, and will believe what the word of God 
asserts to be the end of all such hopes and efforts ; 
who will trust the declarations of those men who 
have tried for themselves, and, like Martyn, have 
been obliged, in the midst of their triumph, honestly 
to confess that they were disappointed of the happi- 
ness which they calculated on as sure. Martyn 
had been so diligent in order to gain this supposed 
reward, that his fellow-students called him ' the man 
who had not lost an hour ;' he found too late that 
he had for ever lost many hours of opportunity 
of acquiring the knowledge of divine truth, and 
of his own duty, and many hours of happiness, 
such as all the honours, and even all the pleasures 



16 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

of learning, can never confer, or compensate a man 
for its loss. 

Martyn spent the vacation of the next summer 
at college, and had the opportunity of being much 
alone ; and his attention not being absorbed by his 
studies as formerly, he was able to give a more se- 
rious and deep attention to the condition of his soul. 
He devoted much time to meditation upon his past 
life, the wandering of his affection from God, and 
the necessity of some great change in his heart, to 
bring him to make that willing devotion of himself 
to his service, which he saw was reasonably requir- 
ed of him, and which he felt ought to be his highest 
happiness. 

" God," he observes, " was pleased to bless the 
solitude and retirement I enjoyed this summer, to 
my improvement: and not until then had I ever 
experienced any real pleasure in religion. I was 
more convinced of sin than ever, more earnest in 
fleeing to Jesus for refuge, and more desirous of 
the renewal of my nature." 

His friendship with the Rev. Mr. Simeon, of 
Cambridge, and several pious young men, was a 
great advantage in winning his affections to religion, 
and giving him a correct view of the Christian cha- 
racter. He had determined to apply himself to the 
study of law, chiefly, as he confessed, " because he 
could not consent to be poor for Christ's sake," 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTIN. 17 

but he now felt willing to cut off all prospect of 
temporal distinction, and resolved to prepare for the 
ministry. The influence of the Spirit seemed to at- 
tend the use of the means of spiritual knowledge, 
so that he could write to a friend in September 
1801, "blessed be God, I have now experienced 
that Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom 
of God. What a blessing is the gospel ! No 
heart can conceive its excellency, but that which 
has been renewed by divine grace." About the 
same time he wrote thus to his sister: 

" When we consider the misery and darkness of 
the unregenerate world, oh ! with how much rea- 
son should we burst out into thanksgiving to God, 
who has called us in his mercy through Christ 
Jesus ! Who that reflects upon the rock from 
which he was hewn, but must rejoice to give him- 
self entirely and without reserve to God, to be 
sanctified by his Spirit. The soul that has truly 
experienced the love of God, will not stay meanly 
inquiring how much he shall do, and thus limit his 
service ; but will be earnestly seeking, more and 
more, to know the will of our heavenly Father, that 
he may be enabled to do it. O may we be both 
thus minded ! may we experience Christ to be our 
all in all, not only as our Redeemer, but as the 
fountain of grace. Those passages of the word of 
God which you have quoted on this head, are in- 
b2 



18 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

deed awakening ; may they teach us to breathe 
after holiness, to be more and more dead to the 
world, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ. 
We are lights in the world ; how needful then 
that our tempers and lives should manifest our 
high and heavenly calling. Let us, as we do, 
provoke one another to good works, not doubting 
but that God will bless our feeble endeavours to 
his glory." 

Happening to call at a house where a gentleman, 
with whom he had a slight acquaintance, was lying 
ill, he found his wife in great agony, on account of 
the unprepared state of her husband to enter eter- 
nity, and in expectation of being left with her family 
entirely destitute of maintenance, if he should die. 
He found it in vain to direct her thoughts to God, 
whom they both had probably neglected to serve in 
their prosperity, and he went to visit her daughters, 
who had removed to another house, that their ap- 
pearance of grief might not disturb the dying man. 
Upon entering the room, he found a member of 
college diverting their thoughts by reading a play to 
them. He was so astonished and indignant at the 
sight, that he rebuked the young man in such a 
manner that he thought it would produce a quarrel 
between them. But he was joyfully surprised after- 
wards, when he came to thank him for the reproof, 
and acknowledge that it had made a serious im- 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 1£ 

pression on his mind, which proved to be perma- 
nent; and Mr. Martyn was afterwards associated 
with him as a missionary in India. 

In March 1802, Mr. Martyn was successful in 
being elected to a fellowship in the college — a 
privilege granted to a select number of the best 
scholars, who are, on certain conditions, supported 
by the funds of the college, and have the privi- 
lege of residing there. Soon afterwards he ob- 
tained the first prize, for having produced the best 
Latin composition. Thus he was rising rapidly 
to distinction, and his prospects of success in life 
were brilliant. His talents and acquirements would 
no doubt have easily procured him honourable and 
profitable employment. His strong natural passion 
of ambition had every thing that is tempting in 
success, to allure him in its path : the prospect of 
a distinguished career was opening most favourably 
before him. The sincerity of his resolution to seek 
first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, 
was put to the strongest trial ; yet, through the Di- 
vine grace, he was enabled to overlook all these 
temporal advantages, and made willing to conse- 
crate his powers to the promotion of the glory of 
God. He had resolved to enter the ministry : but 
even in that profession, in England, there is a large 
field open for ambition, and the learning and talents 
of Martyn might have gained him some of the 



20 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

highest stations in the church, where wealth, ease, 
and eminence could be enjoyed. But his great de- 
sire was to be employed in the manner in which 
he could do the most good to his fellow men, and 
promote the glory of God, by extending the know- 
ledge of Jesus Christ and his gospel. He knew, too, 
that in the humblest station he would be most likely 
to increase in spiritual piety, as he would be ex- 
posed to fewer of those temptations, by which he 
had already been so much endangered. He there- 
fore determined to become a foreign missionary, 
and offered himself as such to the English society, 
now called " The Church Missionary Society for 
Africa and the East." 

It is too often the case, that in perusing the life 
of an eminent disciple of Christ, the reader is led 
to suppose that the person who is spoken of in 
such terms of praise by the author, was so excellent 
that he went beyond the holiness and duty that are 
required of men generally, and that his devotedness 
must be a ground of worth in the sight of God. 
This manner of writing should be carefully avoided, 
as it encourages human presumption, by leading 
men to trust much in the amount of good that they 
may do, and flatters their pride by persuading them 
that great sacrifices in the cause of Christianity en- 
title them to distinction, not only in this world, but 
in the eve of heaven. Alas ! it is because so few 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 21 

persons make any self-denial, to promote the honour 
of the Redeemer, that such consequences result. 
If every Christian were to give up all his property, 
and leave home and family for ever, and go to dwell 
amongst the most degraded nations of the furthest 
lands, it would not reach the amount of obligation 
they are under ; it would not equal, by ten thou- 
sand degrees, the favours of Jesus Christ to this 
world. Man can never, by all his good deeds, 
have a claim to the rewards of heaven. Even 
after a long life thus spent in wretchedness and 
banishment, for the sake of doing good and convert- 
ing souls, it is an act of God's mere mercy, and 
that for Christ's sake, that any one is accepted as a 
faithful servant, and in this sense, counted worthy 
of the kingdom of heaven. But the usefulness of 
such writings consists in showing how much good 
an individual, under the blessing of God, may per- 
form ; and thus encouraging other men to undertake 
great plans of usefulness, by the proof that He con- 
descends to make use of human creatures in accom- 
plishing his great purposes of mercy to the world. 
An instance of such devotedness to the service of 
God, is often more powerful in inducing others to 
follow the example, than even the fact which is so 
clear from scripture, that God effects his purposes 
by human agency, and that it is therefore men's 
duty to do their utmost, at all hazards, to promote 



22 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

the divine designs. So it was in the case of Marty n 
himself, whose thoughts were led to a missionary 
life, by the accounts of the great success which had 
attended the labours of Dr. Carey in India, and of 
David Brainerd among the American Indians. And 
the object of preparing this life of Henry Martyn, is 
not to praise him, for he only did his duty ; and even 
this, as he acknowledged, he did not do, (as no 
Christian in this life does,) with that entire devot- 
edness to Christ, and freedom from all sinful and sel- 
fish motives which the service of our Divine master 
requires. But our great design is to encourage our 
young readers to aim at doing much for Christ ; and 
to show the power of Divine grace which overcame 
the worldly ambition, and love of wealth and com- 
fort, which were natural to Martyn^ and induced 
him to leave all prospect of happiness from these 
sources, and to give himself up wholly to the em- 
ployment of carrying the knowledge of the way 
of salvation to nations who were in all the darkness 
of idolatry. 

Nor are we to suppose that it cost Martyn no 
struggle, to give up all these prospects. Men are 
seldom so much sanctified, as to make great sacri- 
fices with entire cheerfulness. He had still to strive 
with his pride, his love of the world, his indisposi- 
tion to toil amongst a wretched and ignorant people ; 
but he found strength to sustain these trials by per- 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 23 

severing, earnest prayer ; by meditating more on 
the duty he owed his Maker, and the return which 
the atonement that Christ had made for his sins, 
called for from him. Thus, through God's favour, 
not through any ability of his own, he became 
the useful man he afterwards was in India. 

The nature of the temptations he underwent at 
times, may be understood from his own candid 
statement of them to his pious sister. 

" I received your letter yesterday, and thank God 
for the concern you manifest for my spiritual wel- 
fare. that we may love each other more and 
more in the Lord. The passages you bring from 
the word of God, were appropriate to my case, 
particularly those from the first Epistle of St. Peter, 
and that to the Ephesians ; though I do not seem 
to have given you a right view of my state. The 
dejection I sometimes labour under seems not to 
arise from doubts of my acceptance with God, 
though it tends to produce them ; nor from despond- 
ing views of my own backwardness in the divine 
life, for I am more prone to self-dependence and 
conceit ; but from the prospect of the difficulties I 
have to encounter in the whole of my future life. 
The thought that I must be unceasingly employed 
in the same kind of work, amongst poor ignorant 
people, is what my proud spirit revolts at. To be 
obliged to submit to a thousand uncomfortable 



24 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

things that must happen to me, whether as a minis- 
ter or a missionary, is what the flesh cannot endure. 
At these times I feel neither love to God, nor love 
to man ; and in proportion as these graces of the 
Spirit languish, my besetting sins, pride, and dis- 
content, and unwillingness for every duty, make 
me miserable. 

" You will best enter into my views by considering 
those texts which serve to recal me to a right aspect 
of things. I have not that coldness in prayer you 
would expect, but generally find myself strength- 
ened in faith and humility and love after it: but 
the impression is so short. I am at this time 
enabled to give myself, body, soul, and spirit, to 
God, and perceive it to be my most reasonable 
service. How it may be when the trial comes, I 
know not, yet I will trust and not be afraid. In 
order to do his will cheerfully, I want love for the 
souls of men ; to suffer it, I want humility : let 
these be the subjects of your supplications for me. 
I am thankful to God that you are so free from 
anxiety and care : we cannot but with praise 
acknowledge his goodness. What does it signify 
whether we be rich or poor, if we are sons of God 1 
How unconscious are they of their real greatness, 
and will be so till they find themselves in glory ! 
When we contemplate our everlasting inheritance, 
it seems too good to be true ; yet it is no more 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 25 

than is due to the kindred of ' God manifest in 
the flesh.' 

"A journey I took last week into Norfolk seems 
to have contributed greatly to my health. The 
attention and admiration shown me are great and 
very dangerous. The praises of men do not now, 
indeed, flatter my vanity as they formerly did; I 
rather feel pain, through anticipation of their 
consequences : but they tend to produce, imper- 
ceptibly, a self-esteem and hardness of heart. How 
awful and awakening a consideration is it, that God 
judgeth not as man judgeth ! Our character before 
him, is precisely as it was before or after any 
change of external circumstances. Men may ap- 
plaud or revile, and make a man think differently 
of himself; but He judgeth of a man according to 
his secret walk. How difficult is the work of self- 
examination ! Even to state to you, imperfectly, 
my own mind, I found to be no easy matter. Nay, 
St. Paul says, * I judge not mine own self, for he 
that judgeth me is the Lord.' That is, though he 
was not conscious of any allowed sin, yet he was 
not thereby justified, for God might perceive some- 
thing of which he was not aware. How needful 
then, the prayer of the Psalmist, ' Search me, O 
God, and try my heart, and see if there be any 
evil way in me.' May God be with you, and 
bless you, and uphold you with the right hand of 
C 



26 LIFE OF HENRY MAItTYN. 

his righteousness : and let us seek to love ; for « he 
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, for God is 
love.' " 

His diary furnishes a farther insight into his 
experience, and the resoluteness with which he 
opposed the wavering of his faith by continual 
application to the promises of God in Christ. 

" Since I have endeavoured to divest myself of 
every consideration independent of religion, I see 
the difficulty of maintaining a liveliness in devotion 
for any considerable time together ; nevertheless, 
as I shall have to pass the greater part of my future 
life, after leaving England, with no other source of 
happiness than reading, meditation, and prayer, I 
think it right to be gradually mortifying myself to 
every species of worldly pleasure. "-^." In all my 
past life I have fixed on some desirable ends, at 
different distances, the attainment of which was to 
furnish me with happiness. But now, in seasons 
of unbelief, nothing seems to lie before me but one 
vast uninteresting wilderness, and heaven appear- 
ing but dimly at the end. Oh ! how does this show 
the necessity of living by faith ! What a shame 
that I cannot make the doing of God'.s will my ever 
delightful object, and the prize of my high calling 
the mark after which I press !" 

"I was under disquiet at the prospect of my 
future work, encompassed, as it appeared, with 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYX. 27 

difficulties ; but I trusted I was under the guidance 
of infinite wisdom, and on that I could rest. Mr. 
Johnson, who had returned from a mission, observ- 
ed that the crosses to be endured were far greater 
than could be conceived ; but " none of these things 
move me, neither count I my life dear unto me, 
so that I might finish my course with joy.' — Had 
some disheartening thoughts at night, at the pro- 
spect of being stripped of every earthly comfort ; 
but who is it that maketh my comforts to be a 
source of enjoyment ? Cannot the same hand 
make cold, and hunger, and nakedness, and peril, 
to be a train of ministering angels conducting me 
to glory ?" — " O my soul, compare thyself with St. 
Paul, and with the example and precepts of the 
Lord Jesus. Christ. Was it not his meat and drink 
to do the will of his heavenly Father?" 

" What is the state of my own soul before God 1 
I believe that it is right in principle : I desire no 
other portion but God : but I pass so many hours 
as if there were no God at all. I live far below 
the hope, comfort, and holiness of the Gospel : 
but be not slothful, O my soul ; — look unto Jesus 
the author and finisher of thy faith. For whom 
was grace intended, if not for me ? Are not the 
promises made to me ? Is not my Maker in earnest, 
when he declareth that he willeth my sanctifica- 
tion, and hath laid help on one that is mighty ? 



28 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

I will therefore have no confidence in the flesh, 
but will rejoice in the Lord, and the joy of the 
Lord shall be my strength. May I receive from 
above a pure, a humble, a benevolent, a heavenly 
mind !" 

" Learnt by heart some of the first three chapters 
of Revelations. This is to me the most searching 
and alarming part of the Bible ; yet now with 
humble hope I trusted, that the censures of my 
Lord did not belong to me : except that those 
words, Rev. ii. 3. ' For my name's sake thou 
hast laboured and hast not fainted,' were far too 
high a testimony for me to think of appropriating 
to myself; nevertheless I besought the Lord, that 
whatever I had been, I might now be perfect and 
complete in all the will of God." — " Men frequently 
admire me, and I am pleased; but I abhor the 
pleasure I feel ; oh ! did they but know that my 
root is rottenness !" — " Heard Professor Farish 
preach at Trinity Church, on Luke xii. 4, 5, and 
was deeply impressed with the reasonableness and 
necessity of the fear of God. Felt it to be a light 
matter to be judged of man's judgment ; why have 
I not awful apprehensions of the glorious Being at 
all times ? The particular promise—' him that 
overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of 
my God, and he shall go no more out,' dwelt a 
long time in my mind, and diffused an affectionate 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 29 

reverence of God." — "I see a great work before 
me now, namely, the subduing and mortifying 
of my perverted will. What am I that I should 
dare to do my own will, even if I were not a sinner ; 
but now how plain, how reasonable to have the 
love of Christ constraining me to be his faithful 
willing servant, cheerfully taking up the cross he 
shall appoint me." — " Read some of Amos. The 
reading of the Prophets is to me one of the most 
delightful employments. One cannot but be charm- 
ed with the beauty of the imagery, while they 
never fail to inspire me with awful thoughts of God 
and of his hatred of sin. The reading of Baxter's 
Saint's Rest, determined me to live more in heavenly 
meditation." — " Walked by moonlight, and found 
it a sweet relief to my mind to think of God and 
consider my ways before him. I was strongly 
impressed with the vanity of the world, and could 
not help wondering at the imperceptible operation 
of grace, which had enabled me to resign the ex- 
pectation of happiness from it." — " How frequently 
has my heart been refreshed, by the descriptions 
in the Scriptures of the future glory of the Church, 
and the happiness of man hereafter." — " I felt 
the force of Baxter's observation, that if an angel 
had appointed to meet me, I should be full of 
awe ; how- much more when I am about to meet 
God." 

c2 



30 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

" Ah ! what a heart is mine ! The indistinctness 
of my view of its desperate wickedness is terrible 
to me, that is, when I am capable of feeling any 
terror. But now my soul ! rise from earth and 
hell, — shall Satan lead me captive at his will, when 
Christ ever liveth to make intercession for the 
vilest worm ? O thou ! whose I am by creation, 
preservation, redemption, no longer my own, but, 
his who lived and died and rose again, once more 
would I resign this body and soul, mean and 
worthless as they are, to the blessed disposal of 
thy holy will ! May I have a heart to love God 
and his people, the flesh being crucified ! May 
grace abound, where sin has abounded much ! May 
I cheerfully and joyfully resign my ease and life in 
the service of Jesus, to whom I owe so much ! 
May it be sweet to me to proclaim to sinners like 
myself, the blessed efficacy of my Saviour's blood ! 
May he make me faithful unto death ! The greatest 
enemy I dread is the pride of my own heart. 
Through pride reigning, I should forget to know a 
broken spirit : then would come on unbelief, weak- 
ness, apostacy." 

" Let then," he wrote to a friend, " no obstacle 
intervene, to prevent the increase of my self-know- 
ledge, in which I am lamentably deficient. Let us 
both bend our minds to the discipline necessary to 
obtain it, and communicate our discoveries for our 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 31 

mutual benefit. How strongly is the importance 
of self-knowledge, and the difficulty of obtaining it, 
marked by these words ; ' Keep thy heart with all 
diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.' And 
to those who cfnnot keep their hearts for want of 
knowing any thing about them, very compassionate 
are the words of our Lord ; * Because thou knowest 
not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, 
and blind, and naked, I counsel thee to buy of me 
gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich ; and 
white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and 
that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; 
and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou 
mayest see.' You put me in mind, in your last 
letter, of former days. What fruit had we then in 
those things, whereof we are now ashamed ? But 
those days have passed away for ever. And when 
glory shall open upon our view, neither sorrow 
nor sin. shall again interrupt our joys for ever. I 
will echo your words, and say, * What manner of 
love is this, that we should be called the sons of 
God !' We may look upon one another, and re- 
member our former selves, and say, ' What hath 
God wrought !' * Not by works of righteousness 
which thou hast done, but according to his mercy 
he saved thee.' Now then, my dear brother, let 
all the rest of our life be cheerfully devoted to God. 
We are no longer our own, but are bought with a 



32 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

price — with what a price ! Let us adore him also, 
that we are called in our youth ; that while our 
hearts are susceptible of warm emotions, they are 
taught the glow of Divine affections. Let us glorify 
him on the earth, if many years are assigned us, 
and finish the work which he hath given us to do. 
And may we come to our graves in a full age, as a 
shock of corn cometh in his season." 



CHAPTER III. 

Mr. Martyn was ordained to the ministry on 
the 22d of October, 1803. He complained to a 
friend that " this occasion, so solemn in itself, 
through want of retirement, was not so to me." 

He passed the time, which, by the rules of the 
English Episcopal church, is required before min- 
isters can be admitted to the full exercise of the 
sacred office, as assistant to his friend, the Rev. 
Mr. Simeon, in his church at Cambridge, and as 
pastor in a small village at a short distance from the 
town. In this capacity he laboured constantly in 
preaching, and in making religious visits to the 
houses of the poor, and to hospitals. 

After speaking of his preparations for the pulpit, 
he says, " Another part of my stated ministrations, 
is to visit one part of Mr. Simeon's people every 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 33 

week. Unless the mind be in a spiritual and hea- 
venly frame, it is difficult to go through this service 
with any degree of satisfaction. However, though 
I have often gone to them cramped with sinful fear, 
I have been enabled to go through with ease and 
comfort, thanks be to God. I have been generally 
in great depression of spirits ever since my ordina- 
tion ; for, having at that tima not a single sermon, 
my hands and head have been constantly employed 
in that business, while my heart has not had its 
due share of exercise. I am now recovering from 
my cowardly despondency on that head ; but lately 
I have been in heaviness again, through the preva- 
lence of self-will, and the prospect of incessant self- 
denial. God help me to endure hardness, as a 
good soldier of Christ Jesus ; to fight the good fight 
of faith ; and to be a partaker of the afflictions of 
the Gospel, according to the power of God. My 
chief comfort is to meditate on the world to come, 
though it is a happiness which I can seldom steadily 
enjoy, the train of one's thoughts is so influenced 
and directed by the empty concerns of human life. 
Another evil with me is great childish levity, and 
want of serious conviction of the awful work of the 
ministry. In the pulpit I have hitherto been think- 
ing only of the sermon before me, unconscious of 
the presence of God or the people. Deliver me 
from blood-guiltiness, O God !" 



34 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

During this interval, the estate which his sister 
and himself inherited from their father, was lost; 
and instead of being able to go out as a missionary, 
at his own expense, as appears .to have been his 
original design, he now sought an appointment as 
a chaplain of the East India Company, to be em- 
ployed at some of their stations ; which he thought 
would give him great advantages in preaching to 
the heathen. We copy here another of his let- 
ters : 

44 1 am glad to hear that the Gospel spreads 
among you, for the sake of my poor fellow-sinners. 

that I had the glory of Christ more at heart ! 
Most of us have far too little earnestness ; and I 
for one. Wall's Lane is in my parish here. Its 
well known character will give you to understand 
that I have abundant room for the exercise of zeal. 

1 have as yet visited only the two alms-house3 and 
the poor-house, in which I meet the people once a 
week, and two or three other houses. To cleanse 
these stables of Augeas, I may well be taught a 
useful lesson from the fabled hero — not to attempt 
the work in my own strength, but to turn the river 
of grace into it. In my country parish, religion is 
at a low ebb. The school, however, is re-esta- 
blished ; and the benefit of it will, I trust, be of 
eternal consequence. With respect to my own 
heart, my dear friend, what shall I say? I have 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 35 

been visited, of late, with some very severe trials ; 
of which the loss of the fortunes of myself and two 
sisters is the least. As often as the pride and 
arrogance of my heart are brought down into the 
dust, and 1 am able to walk softly before the Lord, 
I am peaceful and happy enough. My present 
desire is to walk alone with God. I have lived too 
much in public ; going to God in prayer as if I 
were coming out of a crowd, and about to be tossed 
into it again. But to walk with God is surely to 
be with him always ; to preach as one delivering 
the message in his presence ; to plead with souls 
as in the stead of the invisible God near us. Ah, my 
brother, we die alone. If we have not lived in 
solitary communion with God, we shall start at 
finding ourselves, in the solemn silence of death, 
about to launch forward where no friends, no ordi- 
nances, can accompany us." 

We cannot help observing, how the impressive 
thought, contained in the last sentences, was strik- 
ingly and literally exemplified, in the circumstances 
of his own decease. He shortly wrote again : 

"I am about to alter my plan of preaching to 
my country congregation. They have been hear- 
ing from me the Gospel, for which they are by no 
means prepared : for I have discovered, to my sur- 
prise and grief, that they do not know the difference 
between sin and duty. It is now my design to 



36 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

explain to them the Commandments, Sermon on 
the Mount, &c."~" Through the tender mercy of 
God, I begin to feel a little more zeal and earnest- 
ness than formerly. O, my brother, how great the 
honour that in our office at least, we are like to 
Christ ; that, in this respect, as he was, so are we 
in this world ! May love carry forward our feet in 
swift obedience ; and may we continue in our work, 
with all firmness, and patience, and tenderness for 
the souls of men!" 

Martyn spent much of his time in devotion, and 
in reading the scriptures. He committed large por- 
tions to memory, that he might always have a sub- 
ject for meditation ; and whenever he became so 
interested in any other book, as to have reason to 
fear that it was more pleasing to him than the 
Bible, he would at once lay it aside ; until, by re- 
turning to the sacred volume, his mind was restored 
to feel the value and interest of its truths above all 
others. He was in the habit of setting apart whole 
days for secret religious services, examining his 
heart, searching the scriptures, and imploring the 
mercy and direction of God. And that he might 
do this with the least interruption, he was accus- 
tomed to abstain from his usual food at such seasons ; 
as devout men, from very ancient times, have ob- 
served fasts. He thus speaks in his diary of the 
reasons and effect of these occasions : 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 37 

" I felt the need of setting apart a day for the 
restoration of my soul by solemn prayer : my views 
of eternity are becoming dim and transient. I 
could live for ever in prayer, if I could always 
speak to God. I sought to pause, and to consider 
what I wanted, and to look up with fear and faith, 
and I found the benefit ; for my soul was soon com- 
posed to that devout sobriety which I knew by its 
sweetness to be its proper frame. I was engaged 
in prayer in the manner I like, deep seriousness / 
at the end of it, I felt great fear of forgetting the 
presence of God, and of leaving him as soon as I 
should leave the posture of devotion. I was led 
through the mists of unbelief, and spake to God as 
one that was true ; and rejoiced exceedingly that 
he was holy and faithful. I endeavoured to con- 
sider myself as being alone on the earth with him, 
and that greatly promoted my approach to his pre- 
sence. My prayer for a meek and holy sobriety 
was granted. O how sweet the dawn of heaven !" 
As there was every prospect of succeeding in the 
application he had made for an Indian chaplaincy, 
he began to prepare for his departure, by taking 
leave of his friends in Cornwall. This was, of 
course, a severe trial. He was to bid farewell to 
country and friends, to sisters, and a lady to whom 
he was still more tenderly attached, with the pro- 
spect of never again seeing them in this world. To 
D 



38 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

a person of his amiable and domestic disposition, 
such a separation was full of distress. Besides, 
he was going to reside in another, and far distant 
continent, in a climate so hot, that it always weak- 
ens, and is often fatal to the constitutions of natives 
of cooler countries. The people with whom he ex- 
pected to live, were uneducated, poor, vicious, and 
idolatrous. Having never been instructed in Chris- 
tianity, his task would be to overcome, if possible, 
the prejudices in favour of their own superstitions, 
which they and their ancestors had cherished for 
centuries ; and to persuade them to adopt a religion 
which would oblige them to give up their dearest sin- 
ful enjoyments. Ignorant of each other's language, 
he would be obliged to study theirs, although one 
little known to Europeans, and extremely difficult to 
be acquired. These discouragements are mentioned, 
not to exalt the praises of Martyn ; for had he been 
a perfect man, they would have appeared too in- 
significant to affect him at all, but to show that God 
gives strength to those who serve Him, and depend 
upon Him, proportionate to their trials and neces- 
sities ; that his grace can enable a man to do actions 
of benevolence, which no other influence could; 
and that the sacrifices which Martyn made, are a 
proof of the reality of religion, as well as of the 
sincerity of his own profession. Let the person 
who is now reading this page, stop here, and ask 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 39 

whether he would be willing to leave his parents, 
friends, and home to-morrow, and go to live 
amongst a population of half-savage people, six- 
teen thousand miles from his home, and spend the 
whole of his life in teaching them to read, and per- 
suading them to believe the gospel ; to be all this 
time subject to abuse and ridicule, from most of 
these people ; to be exposed to weak health and 
early death, and to do all this, merely and solely 
because, if a single one is converted, it would 
promote the glory of God by bringing one more 
soul to acknowledge Him, and make that soul 
happy for ever. Let the reader, who has now his 
eye upon these words, seriously ask what would 
induce him or her to do this ; and then think, if you 
are not willing at once to act thus, what it is that is 
wanting in you. You will find that religion is in- 
deed a reality : that the Bible is indeed true, which 
declares that God will surely make willing and able, 
all who put their trust in Him, to perform whatever 
his providence calls them to do. If you profess 
to be a follower of Christ and to seek the advance- 
ment of his kingdom, are you doing all you can for 
this object, or are you waiting for the judgment, 
supposing that Christ will acknowledge a professed, 
but unprofitable servant ? 



40 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYW 



CHAPTER IV. 



From Cornwall, Mr. Martyn returned to Cam- 
bridge, where he continued to assist Mr. Simeon in 
his church. Although distressed with the conscious- 
ness of his sinfulness, and unworthiness to be a min- 
ister of Christ, he had comforts also, which assured 
him that he had an interest in his Divine Redeemer : 
so that he could confidently say, " I wish for no ser- 
vice but the service of God ; — to labour for souls on 
earth, and to do his will in heaven ;" and at another 
time, u O hasten the day when I shall come to thee ; 
when I shall no more be vexed, and astonished, 
and pained, at the universal wretchedness of this 
lost earth. But here would I abide my time, and 
spend and be spent for the salvation of any poor 
soul ; lie down at the feet of sinners, and beseech 
them not to plunge into an eternity of torment." 
It will be instructive to copy here some pages from 
his letters and diary, in which he wrote down the 
state of his feelings at this period. 

" We should consider it as a sign for good, my 

dearest S , when the Lord reveals to us the 

almost desperate corruption of our hearts. For, if 
he causes us to groan under it, as an insupportable 
burden, he will, we may hope, in his own time, 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTVN. 41 

give us deliverance. The pride which I see dwell- 
ing in my own heart, producing there the most 
obstinate hardness, I can truly say my soul abhors. 
I see it to be unreasonable, I feel it to be torment- 
ing. When I sometimes offer up supplications, 
with strong crying to God, to bring down my spirit 
into the dust, I endeavour calmly to contemplate the 
infinite majesty of the most high God, and my own 
meanness and wickedness. Or else I quietly tell 
the Lord, who knows the heart, that I would give 
him all the glory of every thing, if I could. But the 
most effectual way I have ever found, is to lead away 
my thoughts from myself and my own concerns, 
by praying for all my friends ; for the church, the 
world, the nation ; and especially by beseeching, 
that God would glorify his own great name, by 
converting all nations to the obedience of faith ; — 
also by praying that he would put more abundant 
honour on those Christians whom he seems to have 
honoured especially, and whom we see to be mani- 
festly our superiors. This is at least a positive act 
of humility, and it is certain that not only will a 
good principle produce a good act, but the act will 
increase the principle. But even after doing all 
this, there will often arise a certain self-complacen- 
cy which has need to be checked ; and in conver- 
sation with Christian friends, we should be careful, 
I think, how self is introduced. Unless we think 
d2 



42 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

that good will be done, self should be kept in the 
back ground, and mortified. We are bound to be 
servants of all, ministering to their pleasure as far 
as will be to their profit. We are to ' look not at 
our own things, but at the things of others.' Be 

assured, my dear S that night and day, making 

mention of you in my prayers, I desire of God to 
give you to see the depth of pride and iniquity in 
your heart, yet not to be discouraged at the sight 
of it : that you may perceive yourself deserving to 
be cast out with abhorrence from God's presence ; 
and then may walk in continual poverty of spirit, 
and the simplicity of a little child. Pray, too, that 
I may know something of humility. Blessed grace ! 
how it smooths the furrows of care, and gilds the 
dark paths of life ! It will make us kind, tender- 
hearted, affable, and enable us to do more for God 
and the gospel, than the most fervent zeal without 
it." 

" Sept. 30th, 1804.— My mind, this morning, 
easily ascended to God, in peaceful solemnity. I 
succeeded in finding access to God, and being alone 
with him. Could I but enjoy this life of faith more 
steadily, how much should I * grow in grace,' and 
be renewed in the spirit of my mind. At such sea- 
sons of fellowship with the Father, and his Son 
Jesus Christ, when the world, and self, and eternity, 
are nearly in their right places, not only are my 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 43 

views of duty clear and comprehensive, but the 
proper motives have a more constraining influence." 

" Oct. 28^/?,.— This. has been in general a happy 
day. In the morning, through grace, I was enabled 
by prayer to maintain a calm recollection of my- 
self,— and what was better, of the presence of my 
dear Redeemer. From the church I walked to our 
garden, where I was above an hour, I trust with 
Christ, speaking to him chiefly of my future life in 
his service. I determined on entire devotedness, 
though with trembling; for the flesh dreads cruci- 
fixion. But should I fear pain, when Christ was 
so agonized for me ? No, — come what will, I am 
determined, through God, to be a fellow worker 
with Christ. I recollected with comfort, that I was 
speaking to the great Creator, who can make such 
a poor weak worm as myself ' more than conqueror.' 
At church I found by the attention of the people, 
that the fervour of my spirit yesterday had been 
conveyed into my sermon. I came to my room, 
rejoicing to be alone again, and to hold communion 
with God." 

" Dec. 9th. — This has been in general a sweet 
and blessed day, — a foretaste of my eternal sabbath. 
Preached on the third commandment : in the after- 
noon on the tenth. Rode back to Cambridge, feeling 
quite willing to go any where, or to suffer any 
thing for God. Preached in Trinity church, on 



44 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

Ezek. xxxiii. 11. 'Say unto them, — As I live, 
saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death 
of the wicked : but that the wicked turn from his 
way and live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil 
ways ; for why will ye die, O house of Israel V It 
was pleasant to me to think of being alone again 
with God." 

"Jan. 1, 1805. — Hitherto hath the Lord helped 
me. It is now about five years since God stopped 
me in the career of worldliness, and turned me from 
the paths of sin : — three years and a half since I 
turned to the Lord with all my heart : — and a little 
more than two years since he enabled me to devote 
myself to his service as a missionary. My progress 
of late has become slower than it had been : yet I 
can truly say, that in the course of this time, every 
successive year, every successive week, has been 
happier than the former. From many dangerous 
snares hath the Lord preserved me : in spite of all 
my inward rebellion, he hath carried on his work 
in my heart ; and in spite of all my unbelieving 
fears, he hath given me a hope full of immortality ; 
— ' he hath set my foot on a rock, and established 
my goings, and hath put a new song in my mouth, 
even praises to my God.' It is the beginning of a 
critical year to me : yet I feel little apprehension. 
The same grace and long suffering, the same wis- 
dom and power, that have brought me so far, will 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 45 

bring me on, though it be through fire and water, 
to a goodly heritage. I see no business in life but the 
work of Christ, neither do I desire any employment 
io all eternity but his service. I am a sinner saved 
by grace. Every day's experience convinces me 
of this truth. My daily sins and constant corrup- 
tion leave me no hope, but that which is founded 
on God's mercy in Christ. His spirit, I trust, is 

, imparted, and is renewing my nature ; as I desire 
much, though I have attained but little. Now to 
God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, would I 

! solemnly renew my self-dedication, to be his ser- 
vant for ever." 

" I could not help reflecting on the almost super- 
natural fervour and deep devotion which came upon 
me, whilst I declared that I had rightfully no other 
business each day but to do God's work as a ser- 
vant, constantly regarding his pleasure." " My 
thoughts were full of what God would do for his 
own glory, in -the conversion of multitudes to him- 

| self in the latter day. I did not wish to think 
about myself in any respect, but found it a precious 
privilege to stand by, a silent admirer of God's 

i doings." 

In March 1805, he completed the time required, 
before he could be sent out as a minister, and there 
was nothing more to detain him from proceeding 
on his mission. " I rejoice to say," (he wrote at 



46 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

this time to his sister,) "that I never had so clear 
a conviction of my call as at present, — as far as it 
respects the inward impression. Never did I see 
so much the exceeding excellency, and glory, and 
sweetness of the work, nor had so much the favour- 
able testimony of my own conscience, nor perceived 
so plainly the smile of God. I am constrained to 
say, — what am I, or what is my father's house, 
that I should be made willing ; — what am I, that I 
should be so happy, so honoured ?" — In his Journal, 
likewise, he expresses himself to the same effect : 
'*' I felt more persuaded of my call than ever : there 
was scarcely the shadow of a doubt left ; — rejoice, 
O my soul, — thou shalt be the servant of God in 
this life, and in the next, for all the boundless ages 
of eternity." 

In April he went to London, where he remained 
two months, principally employed in learning Hin- 
doostanee, the language of a large part of India, 
made up of the Sanscrit, Persian, and Arabic. 
The entries of his diary during this interval will 
best exhibit the state of his heart, in anticipation 
of his employment. 

"April 15th. — O may God confirm my feeble 
resolutions ! What have I to do but to labour, and 
pray, and fast, and watch, for the salvation of my 
own soul, and those of the heathen world. Ten 
thousand times more than ever do I feel devoted to 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 47 

that precious work. O gladly shall this base blood 
be shed, every drop of it, if India can be benefited in 
one of her children ; — if but one of those children 
of God Almighty might be brought home to his 
duty." 

"April l&h.— How careful should I, and all be, 
in our ministry, not to break the bruised reed ! Alas ! 
do I think that a schoolboy, a raw academic, should 
be likely to lead the hearts of men ? — what a 
knowledge of men, and acquaintance with the 
Scriptures, what communion with God, and study 
of my own heart, ought to prepare me for the aw- 
ful work of a messenger from God on the business 
of the soul!" 

" April 22d. — I da not wish for any heaven 
upon earth besides that of preaching the precious 
Gospel of Jesus Christ to immortal souls. May 
these weak desires increase and strengthen with 
every difficulty." 

" April 21th. — My constant unprofitableness 
seemed to bar my approach to God. But I con- 
sidered that for all that was past, the blood of 
Christ would atone ; and that for the future, God 
would that moment give me grace to perform my 
duty." 

"May 9th. — my soul, when wilt thou live 
consistently? When shall I walk steadily with 
God? When shall I hold heaven constantly in 



48 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

view? How time glides away,-— how is death ap- 
proaching,— how soon must I give up my account, 
— how are souls perishing, — how does their blood 
call but to us to labour and watch, and pray for 
them that remain !" 

" June 1. — Memory has been at work to unnerve 
my soul : but reason, and honour, and love to Christ 
and souls shall prevail. Amen. God help me." 

" June 2. — My dear Redeemer is a fountain of 
life to my soul. With resignation and peace can I 
look forward to a life of labour and entire seclusion 
from earthly comforts, while Jesus thus stands near 
me, changing me into his own image." 

"June 6th. — God's interference in supporting 
me continually, appears to me like a miracle." 

" June 7th.— I have not felt such heart-rending 

pain since I parted with L— in Cornwall. [The 

lady to whom he was attached.] But the Lord 
brought me to consider the folly and wickedness 
of all this. I could not help saying, — Go, Hindoos, 
go on in your misery,— let Satan still reign over 
you ; for he that was appointed to labour among 
you, is consulting his ease. — No, thought I, earth 
and hell shall never keep me back from my work. 
I am cast down, but not destroyed. I began to con- 
sider why I was so uneasy,—' Cast thy care upon 
him, for he careth for you.' 'In every thing by 
prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 49 

requests be made known to God ;' — these promises 
were sweetly fulfilled, before long, to me." 

" July 4th. — Mr. Cecil showed me a letter in 
Swartz's own hand writing. Its contents were of 
a very experimental nature, — applicable to my case. 
The life of faith in Jesus is what I want. My soul 
might almost burst with astonishment at its own 
wickedness ! but at the same time, trusting to mer- 
cy, rise and go, and try to make men happy. The 
Lord go with me ! Let my right hand forget her 
cunning, if I remember not Jerusalem above my 
chief joy." 

On the 8th of July 1805, Mr. Martyn proceeded 
to Portsmouth, from which place he was to sail in a 
ship of the East India Company, to Calcutta, there 
to act as chaplain of the Company. His feelings 
were so painful, that he fainted and fell into a fit 
at a tavern on the road. He was met by a number 
of friends at Portsmouth, who had come to bid him 
a final farewell, for this life ; and he received there 
a silver compass, sent by his congregation, as a 
token of remembrance, which he acknowledged in 
the following letter : 

Portsmouth, July 11, 1805. 

" My dearest Brethren, — I write in great haste 
to thank you most affectionately for the token of 
your love, which our dear brother and minister 
E 



§0 LIFE OF HENRY MAItTYN* 

has given me from you. O may my God richly 
recompense you for your great affection ! May he 
reward your prayers for me, by pouring ten-fold 
blessings into your own bosoms ! May he bless 
you with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus ! 
At the command of God, as I believe, I shall, in a 
few hours, embark for those regions where your 
little present may be of use to me, in guiding my 
way through the trackless desert. I pray that the 
word of God, which is your compass, may, through 
the Spirit, direct your path through the wilderness 
of this world, and bring you in safety to the better 
country above. I beg your prayers, and assure 
you of mine. Remember me sometimes at your 
social meetings, and particularly at that which you 
hold on the Sabbath morning. Pray not only for 
my sinful soul, — that I may be kept faithful unto 
death ; — but especially, for the souls of the poor 
Heathen. Whether I live or die, let Christ be 
magnified by the ingathering of multitudes to him- 
self. I have many trials awaiting me, and so have 
you ; but that covenant of grace in which we are 
interested, provides for the weakest, and secures 
our everlasting welfare. — Farewell, dear Brethren ! 
May God long continue to you the invaluable la- 
bours of your beloved minister ; and may you, with 
the blessing of his ministry, grow, day by day, in 
all spirituality and humility of mind ; till God, in 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 51 

his mercy, shall call you, each in his own time, to 
the eternal enjoyment of his glory." 

On the 17th July the ship sailed, in company with 
a fleet, taking an army to India. " It was a very 
painful moment," he wrote to one of his friends, 
" when I awoke, on the morning after you left us, 
and found the fleet actually sailing down the chan- 
nel. Though it was what I had anxiously been 
looking forward to so long, yet the consideration 
of being parted for ever from my friends, almost 
overcame me. My feelings were those of a man 
who should suddenly be told, that every friend he 
had in the world was dead. It was only by prayer 
for them that I could be comforted ; and this was 
indeed a refreshment to my soul, because by meet- 
ing them at the throne of grace, I seemed to be 
again in their society." 

The vessel, however, unexpectedly stopped in 
two days, at Falmouth, an English port, in sight of 
Cornwall. It was a renewal of the pain of separa- 
tion to be thus brought again, for a short time, upon 
the shores which he had supposed he had left for 
ever. He appears, from his Journal, to have suf- 
fered great struggles with his earthly affections : 
but he was supported by Him who never leaves 
his disciples to contend alone with the trials of 
their faith. 

."July 29th, — I was much engaged, at intervals, 



52 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

in learning the hymn, 'The God of Abraham 
praise ;' as often as I could use the language of it 
with any truth, my heart was a little at ease. 

' The God of Abraham praise, 

At whose supreme command 
From earth I rise, and seek the joys 

At his right hand. 

1 1 all on earth forsake, 

Its Wisdom, fame, and power ; 
And him my only portion make, 

My shield and tower.' 

"There was something peculiarly solemn and 
affecting to me in this hymn, and particularly at 
this time. The truth of the sentiments I knew 
well enough. But alas ! I felt that the state of 
mind expressed in it was above mine at the time ; 
and I felt loth to forsake all on earth." 

" I went on board in extreme anguish, and found 
an opportunity in the sloop by which I passed to 
the ship, to cry, with brokenness of spirit, to the 
Lord. The words, ' Why say est thou, O Jacob, 
and speakest, Israel, My way is hid from the 
Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my 
God?' were brought to my mind with such force, 
that I burst into a flood of tears, and felt much re- 
lieved in my soul, by the thought that God was 
thus compassionate, and the blessed Lord Jesus a 
merciful and compassionate High Priest, who con- 
descended to sympathize with me. In the afternoon, 
it pleased God to give me a holy and blessed sea- 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 53 

son in prayer, in which my soul recovered much 
of its wonted peace." 

Orders for the sailing of the fleet with which his 
ship was connected, were given on the 10th of Au- 
gust, whilst Martyn was twenty miles in the coun- 
try. An express was sent after him ; but had not 
an accident happened to the ship in clearing from 
the harbour, he would have been too late. On the 
14th, the fleet anchored again for two weeks, at 
Cork, in Ireland. He had suffered much from 
despondence and weakness of health, and speaks in 
his Journal of the trials of his lot as being far greater 
than he had expected. But he was blessed also 
with spiritual consolation, in proportion as he plac- 
ed his confidence on Him who called him to the 
service. On one occasion he says, 

" After a long and blessed season in prayer, I felt 
the spirit of adoption drawing me very near to God, 
and giving me the full assurance of his love. My 
fervent prayer was, that I might be more deeply 
and habitually convinced of his unchanging ever- 
lasting love, and that my whole soul might be alto- 
gether in Christ. -I scarcely knew how to express 
the desires of my heart. I wanted to be all in 
Christ, and to have Christ for my ' all in all ;' — to 
be encircled in his everlasting arms, and to be 
swallowed up altogether in his fulness. I wished 
for no created good, nor for men to know my ex- 
e2 



54 LIFE OF HENRY MARtYN. 

perience : but to be one with thee, and live for 
thee, O God, my Saviour and Lord. O may it be 
my constant care to live free from the spirit of bon- 
dage, at all times having access to the Father. This 
I feel should be the state of the Christian : perfect 
reconciliation with God, and a perfect appropriation 
of him in all his endearing attributes, according to 
all that he has promised : it is this that shall bear 
me safely through the storm." 

And some weeks afterwards : 

" Sept. 23. — We are just to the south of all Eu- 
rope, and I bid adieu to it for ever, without a wish 
of ever revisiting it, and still less with any desire 
of taking up my rest in the strange land to which 
I am going. Ah ! no, — farewell, perishing world ! 
'To me, to live shall be Christ.' I have nothing 
to do here, but to labour as a stranger, and by secret 
prayer and outward exertion, do as much as possi- 
ble for the church of Christ and my own soul, till 
my eyes close in death, and my soul wings its way 
to a brighter world. Strengthen me, O God my Sa- 
viour ! that, whether living or dying, I may be thine." 

He preached once every Sunday on board the 
ship, the captain not permitting it more frequently* 
To make up for this loss, he almost daily read re- 
ligious books, with remarks of his own, to as many 
as would assemble to hear him ; but he could gain 
the serious attention of very few. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 55 

" Sept. 10th. — Endeavoured to consider what 
should be my study and preparation for the mis- 
sion ; but could devise no particular plan, but to 
search the Scriptures, what are God's promises 
respecting the spread of the gospel, and of the 
means by which it shall be accomplished. Long 
seasons of prayer in behalf of the heathen, I am 
sure, are necessary ; Isaiah lxii. I began Isaiah, 
and learnt by heart the promises scattered through 
the first twelve chapters, hoping it may prove pro- 
fitable matter for meditation as well as prayer. 
Read the Pilgrim's Progress, below, amidst the 
greatest noise and interruption. Notwithstanding 
the clamour, I felt as if I could preach to a million 
of noisy persons with unconquerable boldness. We 
have been becalmed the whole day. I fear my soul 
has been much in the same state : but I would not 
that it should be so any longer." 

"Sept. 15th. — Sunday. — ■ He that testifleth these 
things, saith, behold — I come quickly — Amen— 
even so — come quickly, Lord Jesus !' Happy 
John ! though shut out from society and the ordi- 
nances of grace : happy wast thou in thy solitude, 
when by it thou wast induced thus gladly to wel- 
come the Lord's words, and repeat them with a 
prayer. Read and preached on Acts xiii. 38, 39. 
In the latter part, when I was led to speak, without 
preparation, on the all-sufficiency of Christ to save 



56 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

sinners, who come to him with all their sins with- 
out delay, I was enabled by divine aid, to speak 
with freedom and energy : my soul was refreshed, 
and I retired, seeing reason to be thankful. The 
weather was fair and calm, inviting the mind to 
tranquillity and praise : the ship just moved upon 
the face of the troubled ocean. I went below in 
hopes of reading Baxter's Call to the Unconverted : 
but there was no getting down, as they were taking- 
out water : so I sat with the seamen on the gun- 
deck. As I walked in the evening at sunset, I 
thought with pleasure, but a few more suns, and I 
shall be where my sun shall no more go down." 

" Sept. 16th.— Two things were much in my 
mind this morning in prayer ; the necessity of en- 
tering more deeply into my own heart, and labour- 
ing after humiliation, and, for that reason, setting 
apart times for fasting : as also to devote times for 
solemn prayer for fitness in the ministry ; especial- 
ly love for souls ; and for the effusion of the Spirit 
on heathen lands ; according to God's command." 

The study of the Hindoostanee language was part 
of his employment during the voyage. He also 
instructed some of the young soldiers in mathe- 
matics, and read French with a passenger. As they 
entered the warm latitudes, he found his strength 
diminishing very fast, and he began to fear he could 
never be useful, as a preacher, in India. "Bat 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 57 

what means this anxiety?" he said ; " Is it not of 
God that I am led into outward difficulties, that my 
faith may be tried ? Suppose," (addressing himself,) 
"you are obliged to return, or that you never see 
India, but wither and die here, what is that to you ? 
Do the will of God where you can, and leave the 
rest to him." — About this time he was much im- 
pressed with this sentence in Milner's Church His- 
tory ;— " to believe, to suffer, and to love, was the 
primitive taste ;" and he received great encourage- 
ment by being thus led to contemplate the examples 
of those who had been more bold in serving Christ. 



CHAPTER V. 

The fleet touched at several ports on their way. 
Some portions of his Journal at St. Salvador, in 
South America, will give an interesting variety to 
our pages. 

" I continued my walk in quest of a wood, or 
some trees where I might sit down ; but all was 
appropriated : no tree was to be approached except 
through an inclosure. At last I came to a magnifi- 
cent porch, before a garden gate, which was open ; 
I walked in, but finding the vista led straight to the 
house, I turned to the right, and found myself in a 



58 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

grove. cf cocoa-nut trees, orange trees, and several 
strange fruit trees ; under them was nothing but 
rose trees, but no verdure on the ground : oranges 
were strewed like apples in an orchard. Perceiv- 
ing that I was observed by the slaves, I came up 
to the house, and was directed by them to an old 
man sitting under a tree, apparently insensible from 
illness. I spoke to him in French and in English, 
but he took no notice. Presently a young man 
and a young lady appeared, to whom I spoke in 
French, and was very politely desired to sit down 
at a little table, which was standing under a large 
space before the house like a veranda. They 
then brought me oranges, and a small red acid 
fruit, the name of which I asked, but cannot recol- 
lect. The young man sat opposite, conversing 
about Cambridge ; he had been educated in a Por- 
tuguese University. Almost immediately on find- 
ing I was of Cambridge, he invited me to come 
when I liked to his house. A slave, after bringing 
the fruit, was sent to gather three roses for me ; 
the master then walked with me round the garden, 
and showed me, among the rest, the coffee-plant : 
when I left him he repeated his invitation. His 
name was Antonio Corre." 

" Nov. 14th. — Sennor Antonio received me with 
the same cordiality: he begged me to dine with 
him. In the cool of the evening, we walked out 



LIFE OF HENRY JttARTYN. 59 

lo see his plantation ; here every thing possessed 
the charm of novelty* The grounds included two 
hills, and a valley between them. The hills were 
covered with cocoa-nut trees, bananas, mangoes, 
orange and lemon trees, olives, coffee, chocolate, 
and cotton plants, &c. In the valley was a large 
plantation of a shrub or tree, bearing a cluster of 
small berries, which he desired me to taste ; I did, 
and found it was pepper. It had lately been in- 
troduced from Batavia, and answered very well. 
It grows on a stem about the thickness of a finger, 
to the height of about seven feet, and is supported 
by a stick, which, at that height, has another across 
it for the branches to spread upon. Slaves were 
walking about the grounds, watering the trees, and 
turning up the earth : the soil appeared very dry 
and loose. At night I returned to the ship in 
one of the country boats, which are canoes made 
of a tree hollowed out, and paddled by three 
men." 

" Nov. 18th. — Went ashore at six o'clock, and 
found that Sennor Antonio had been waiting for me 
two hours. It being too late to go into the country, 
I staid at his house till dinner. He kept me too 
much in his company, but I found intervals for re- 
tirement. In a cool and shady part of the gar- 
den, near some water, I sat and sang — ' O'er the 
gloomy hills of darkness.' I could read and pray 



60 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

aloud, as there was no fear of any one understand 
ing me. 

"A slave, in my bed-room, washed my feet. I 
was struck with the degree of abasement expressed 
in the act, and as he held the foot in the towel, 
with his head bowed down towards it, I remember^ 
ed the condescension of the blessed Lord. May I 
have grace to follow such humility !" 

"Nov. I9tli. — Early after breakfast went in a 
palanquin to Sennor Dominigo's, and from thence 
with him two or three miles into the country : at 
intervals I got out and walked. I was gratified 
with the sight of what I wanted to see ; namely, 
some part of the country in its original state, cov- 
ered with wood ; it was hilly, but not mountainous. 
The luxuriance was so rank, that the whole space, 
even to the tops of the trees, was filled with long 
stringy shrubs and weeds, so as to make them im- 
pervious and opaque. The road was made by cut- 
ting away the earth on the side of the hill, so that 
there were woods above and below us. The object 
of our walk was to see a pepper plantation, made 
in a valley, on a perfect level. The symmetry of 
the trees was what charmed my Portuguese friend ; 
but to me, who was seeking the wild features of 
America, it was just what, I did not want. The 
person who showed us the grounds, was one that 
had been a major in the Portuguese army, and had 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 61 

j retired on a pension. The border consisted of 
! pine apples, planted between each tree ; the inte- 
rior was set with lemon trees, here and there, be- 
tween the pepper plants. We were shown the root 
of the mandioc, called by us tapioca ; it was like a 
large horse radish ; the mill for grinding it was 
extremely simple ; a horizontal wheel, turned by 
horses, put in motion a vertical one, on the circum- 
ference of which was a thin brazen plate, furnish- 
ed on the inside like a nutmeg grater ; a slave held 
the root to the wheel, which grated it away, and 
threw it in the form of a moist paste, into a recep- 
tacle below : it is then dried in pans, and used as 
a farina with meat. At Sennor Antonio's, a plate 
of tapioca was attached to each of our plates. Some 
of the pepper was nearly ripe, and of a reddish ap- 
pearance ; when gathered, which it is in April, it 
is dried in the sun." 

"Nov. 23. — In the afternoon took leave of my 
kind friends Sennor and Sennora Corre. They and 
the rest came out to the garden gate, and continued 
looking, till the winding of the road hid me from 
their sight. The poor slave Raymond, who had 
attended me and carried my things, burst into a 
flood of tears, as we left the door ; and when I 
parted from him, he was going to kiss my feet ; 
but I shook hands with him, much affected by such 
extraordinary kindness, in people to whom I had 
F 



62 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

been a total stranger, till within a few days. 
What shall I render unto the Lord for all his 
mercies ?" 

It had lately been announced to the army which 
was carried in the fleet, that they were to be led to 
attack the cape of Good Hope, then held by the 
Dutch. This intelligence, which had been kept 
secret, until they were approaching the cape, ex- 
cited Mr. Martyn to be more active in the service 
of these men, who were soon to be exposed to the 
dangers of warfare, and many of whom would, pro- 
bably, be sent to eternity. He observed a day of 
fasting and prayer in their behalf, addressed them 
from the scriptures whenever he had opportunity, 
and several were induced to kneel publicly in 
prayer with him, notwithstanding the ridicule and 
carelessness of the greater part of the crew and 
soldiers. During a season of great sickness on 
board his ship, at which time the captain died, he 
was very useful in attending to the wants of the 
sick, and leading their minds to consider the neces- 
sity of preparation for eternity. On the last Sunday 
of this year he preached a sermon, adapted to their 
circumstances, from 2 Pet. iii. 11. " Seeing then 
that all these things shall be dissolved, what man- 
ner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversa- 
tion and godliness:" in which he endeavoured to 
impress his hearers with a sense of the importance 



LIFE OF HENRY MART YN. 63 

of religion, reminding them of the ways by which 
Providence had been calling them to reflection, by 
the prevalence of disease, the death of their captain, 
the dangers of the voyage, and the prospect of being 
engaged in battle. His own mind enjoyed great 
peace at this time, as is evident from his diary. 

" Separated from my friends and country for 
ever, there is nothing to distract me from hearing 
' the voice of my beloved,' and coming away from 
this world, and walking with him in love, amidst 
the flowers that perfume the air of paradise, and 
the harmony of the happy, happy saints who are 
singing his praise. Thus hath the Lord brought 
me to the conclusion of the year ; and though I have 
broken his statutes, ancl not kept his command- 
ments, yet he hath not utterly taken away his 
loving kindness, nor suffered his truth to fail. I 
thought, at the beginning of the year, that I should 
have been in India at this time, if I should have 
escaped all the dangers of the climate. These 
dangers are yet to come ; but I can leave all cheer- 
fully to God. If I am weary of any thing, it is of 
my life of sinfulness. I want a life of more devo- 
tion and holiness ; and yet am so vain, as to be ex- 
pecting the end without the means. I am far 
from regretting that I ever came on this delightful 
work ; were I to choose for myself, I could scarce- 
ly find a situation more agreeable to my taste. On, 



64 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

therefore, let me go, and persevere steadily in this 
blessed undertaking: through the grace of God, 
dying daily to the opinions of men, and aiming, 
with a more single eye, at the glory of the ever- 
lasting God." 

On the third of January 1806, the fleet anchored 
at the cape, and the army was landed, and led to 
the attack, which commenced early the next morn- 
ing. As soon as the battle was over, Mr. Martyn 
went on shore, in hopes of being useful to the suf- 
ferers. His own account of the scene, in a letter 
to a friend in England, gives a terrible picture of a 
field of battle. 

" I embraced the opportunity of getting to the 
wounded men, soon after my landing. A party of 
the company's troops were ordered to repair to the 
field of battle, to bring away the wounded, under 

the command of Major — , whom I knew. By 

his permission, I attached myself to them, and 
marched six miles over a soft burning sand, till we 
reached the fatal spot. We found several but 
slightly hurt ; and these we left for a while, after 
seeing their wounds dressed by a surgeon. A lit- 
tle onward were three mortally wounded. One of 
them, on being asked where he was struck, opened 
his shirt and showed a wound in his left breast. 
The blood which he was spitting, showed that he 
had been shot through the lungs. As I spread my 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 65 

great coat over him, by the surgeon's desire, who 
passed on without attempting to save him, I spoke 
of the blessed gospel, and besought him to look to 
Jesus Christ for salvation. He was surprised, but 
could not speak ; and I was obliged to leave him, 
in order to reach the troops, from whom the of- 
ficers, out of regard to my safety, would not allow 
me to be separated. Among several others, some 

wounded, and some dead, was Captain ; who 

was shot by a rifleman. We all stopped for a 
while, to gaze, in pensive silence, on his pale body, 
and then passed on, to witness more proofs of the 
sin and misery of fallen man. Descending into 
the plain, where the main body of each army had 
met, I saw some of the fifty-ninth, one of whom, a 
corporal, who sometimes had sung with us, told 
me that none of the fifty-ninth were killed, and 
none of the officers wounded. Some farm-houses, 
which had been in the rear of the enemy's army, 
had been converted into an hospital for the wound- 
ed, whom they were bringing from all quarters. 
The surgeon told me that there were already in the 
houses two hundred, some of whom were Dutch. 
A more ghastly spectacle than that which present- 
ed itself here, I could not have conceived. They 
were ranged without and within the house, in rows, 
covered with gore. Indeed, it was the blood, which 
they had not had time to wash o% that made their 
f 2 



66 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

appearance more dreadful than the reality : for few 
of their wounds were mortal. The confusion was 
very great : and sentries and officers were so strict 
in their duty, that I had no fit opportunity of speak- 
ing to any of them, except a Dutch captain, with 
whom I conversed in French. After this, I walked 
out again with the surgeon to the field, and saw 
several of the enemy's wounded. A Hottentot, 
who had had his thigh broken by a ball, was lying 
in extreme agony, biting the dust, and uttering hor- 
rid imprecations upon the Dutch. I told him that 
he ought to pray for his enemies ; and after telling 
the poor wretched man of the gospel, I begged him 
to pray to Jesus Christ. But our conversation was 
soon interrupted; for, in the absence of the sur- 
geon, who was gone back for his instruments, a 
highland soldier came up, and challenged me with 
the words, 'Who are you?' 'An Englishman.' 
' No,' said he, ' you are French,' and began to pre- 
sent his piece. As I saw that he was rather in- 
toxicated, and did not know but that he might ac- 
tually fire, out of mere wantonness, I sprang up 
towards him, and told him, that if he doubted my 
word, he might take me as his prisoner to the 
English camp, — but that I certainly was an Eng- 
lish clergyman. This pacified him, and he behaved 
with great respect. The surgeon, on examining 
the wound, said the man must die, and so left him. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYJT. 67 

At length, I fonnd an opportunity of returning, as 
I much wished, in order to recover from distraction 
of mind, and to give free scope to reflection. I lay 
down on the border of a clump of shrubs or bushes, 
with the field of battle in view, and there lifted up 
my soul to God. Mournful as the scene was, I 
yet thanked God that he had brought me to see a 
specimen, though a terrible one, of what men by 
nature are. May the remembrance of this day ever 
excite me to pray and labour more for the propa- 
gation of the gospel of peace. Then shall men love 
one another : nation shall not lift up sword against 
nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 
The blue mountains, to the eastward, which form- 
ed the boundary of the prospect, were a cheering 
contrast to what was immediately before me ; for 
there I conceived my beloved and honoured fellow 
servants,* companions in the kingdom and patience 
of Jesus Christ, to be passing the days of their 
pilgrimage, far from the world, imparting the truths 
of the precious gospel to benighted souls. May I 
receive grace to be a follower of their faith and pa- 
tience ; and do you pray, my brother, as I know 
that you do, that I may have a heart more warm, 
and a zeal more ardent in this glorious cause." 

* The Moravian missionaries at Groenekloof and Gnadenthal, 
and those belonging to the London Missionary Society at 
Bethelsdorp. 



68 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

On the tenth, the fort and town were taken from 
the Dutch. Whilst the fleet was delayed, Martyn 
visited Dr. Vanderkemp, and the other missionaries 
at the cape, and his meeting with them was a 
source of great joy. 

"'From. the first moment I arrived, I had been 
anxiously inquiring about Dr. Vanderkemp. I 
heard at last, to my no small delight, that he was 
now in Cape Town. But it was long before I 
could find him. At length I did. He was standing 
outside of the house, silently looking up at the 
stars. A great number of black people were sitting 
around. On my introducing myself, he led me in, 
and called for Mr. Read. I was beyond measure 
delighted at the happiness of seeing him too. The 
circumstance of meeting with these beloved and 
highly honoured brethren, so filled me with joy 
and gratitude for the goodness of God's providence, 
that I hardly knew what to do." 

"January 14th. — Continued walking with Mr. 
Eead till late. He gave me a variety of curious 
information respecting the mission. He told me 
of his marvellous success amongst the heathen; 
how he had heard them amongst the bushes pouring 
out their hearts to God. At all this my ' soul did 
magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiced in God 
my Saviour.' Now that I am in a land where the 
Spirit of God appears, as in the ancient days, as 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 69 

in the generation of old, let a double portion of that 
Spirit rest upon this unworthy head, that I may go 
forth to my work ' rejoicing like a strong man, to 
-rnn my race.' " 

" January 20th. — Walking home, I asked Dr. 
Vanderkemp if he had ever repented of his under- 
taking. No, said the old man, smiling, and I 
would not exchange my work for a kingdom. 
Head told me some of his trials ; he has often been 
so reduced, for want of clothes, as scarcely to have 
any to cover him. The reasonings of his mind 
were, — I am here, Lord, in thy service ; why am 
I left in this state ? It seemed to be suggested to 
him, If thou wilt be my servant, be contented to 
fare in this way ; if not, go, and fare better. His 
mind was thus satisfied to remain God's mission- 
ary, with all its concomitant hardships. At night, 
my sinful soul enjoyed a most reviving season in 
prayer ; I rejoiced greatly in the Lord, and plead- 
ed with fervour for the interests of his church." 

" January 30th. — Rose at five, and began to as- 
cend Table mountain at six, with S- and 

M ; I went on chiefly alone. I thought of 

the Christian life, — what uphill work it is, — and 
yet there are streams flowing down from the top, 
just as there was water coming down by the Kloof, 
by which we ascended. Towards the top it was 
very steep, but the hope of being soon at the sum- 



70 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

mit, encouraged me to ascend very lightly. As the 
kloof opened, a beautiful flame-coloured flower ap- 
peared in a little green hollow, waving in the 
breeze. It seemed to be an emblem of the beauty 
and peacefulness of heaven, as it shall open upon 
the weary soul, when its journey is finished, and 
the struggles of the death-bed are over. We walk- 
ed up and down the whole length, which might be 
between two and three miles, and one might be 
said to look round the world from this promontory. 
I felt a solemn awe at the grand prospect, from 
which there was neither noise nor small objects to 
draw off my attention. I reflected, especially when 
looking at the immense expanse of sea on the east, 
which was to carry me to India, on the certainty 
that the name of Christ should, at some period, re- 
sound from shore to shore. I felt commanded to 
wait in silence, and see how God would bring his 
promises to pass. We began to descend at half 
past two. Whilst sitting to rest myself, towards 
night, I began to reflect, with death-like despon- 
dency, on my friendless condition. Not that I 
wanted any of the comforts of life, but I wanted 
those kind friends who loved me, and in whose 
company I used to find so much delight after my 
fatigues. And then, remembering that I should 
never see them more, I felt one of those keen 
pangs of misery, that occasionally shoot across my 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 71 

breast. It seemed like a dream, that I had actually- 
undergone banishment from them for life ; or rath- 
er like a dream, that I had ever hoped to share 
the enjoyments of social life. But, at this time, I 
solemnly renewed my self-dedication to God, pray- 
ing that I might receive grace to spend my days 
for his service, in continued suffering, and separa- 
tion from all I held most dear in this life : Amen. 
How vain and transitory are those pleasures which 
the worldliness of my heart will ever be magnifying 
into real good !— The rest of the evening, I felt 
weaned from the world and all its concerns, with 
somewhat of a melancholy tranquillity." 

" January 31. — From great fatigue of body, was 
in doubt about going to the hospital, and very un- 
willing to go. However, I went, and preached 
with more freedom than ever I had done there. 
Having some conversation with Colonel H — — , I 
asked him whether, if the wound he had received 
in the late engagement had been mortal, his pro- 
faneness would have recurred with any pleasure to 
his mind on a death-bed. He made some attempts 
at palliation, though in great confusion ; but bore 
the admonition very patiently." 

"February 5th. — Rose early; walked out, dis- 
couraged at the small progress I make in the eastern 
languages. My state of bodily and mental indo- 
lence was becoming so alarming, that I struggled 



72 LIFE OF HENRY MARTIN. 

hard against both, crying to God for strength. Not- 
withstanding the reluctance in my own heart, I 
went to the hospital, and preached on Matt. xi. 28 ; 
from this time I enjoyed peace and happiness. 
Dr. Vanderkemp called to take leave. I accom- 
panied him and brother Smith out of the town, 
with their two wagons. The dear old man showed 
much affection, and gave me advice, and a blessing 
at parting. While we were standing to take leave, 
Koster, a Dutch missionary, was just entering the 
town with his bundle, having been driven from his 
place of residence. Brother Read, also, appeared 
from another quarter, though we thought he had 
gone to sea. These, with Yons,* and myself, 
made six missionaries, who, in a few minutes, all 
parted again." 

Besides visiting and preaching at the hospital, 
among the wounded English, he held public ser- 
vice at the house in which he lodged. In February 
the fleet again sailed : on the 22d of April anchored 
before Madras, and in the middle of May, he land- 
ed at Calcutta. 

* Probably the missionary destined for Madagascar. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 73 



CHAPTER VI. 



Martyn was much dejected, in contemplating 
the vast multitude of idolaters amongst whom he 
was now placed. 

" Every thing presented the appearance of wretch- 
edness. I thought of my future labours among 
them with some despondency ; yet I am willing, I 
trust, through grace, to pass my days among them, 
if by any means these poor people may be brought 
to God. The sight of men, women, and children, 
all idolaters, makes me shudder, as if in the do- 
minions of the prince of darkness. I fancy the 
frown of God is visible ; — there is something pe- 
culiarly awful in the stillness that prevails. Whe- 
ther it is the relaxing influence of the climate, or 
what, I do not know ; but there is every thing 
here to depress the spirits — all nature droops." 

Whilst he almost despaired of the possibility of 
.ever accomplishing any good himself, he rejoiced 
in the promises and prophecies which make it sure, 
that at .some day, the true God shall be worshipped 
there, and in every other place ; and the gospel of 
Jesus Christ be proclaimed to * every nation under 
heaven.' He was animated by the thought, that even 
should he never see a native converted, yet it might 
be God's design to encourage future missionaries, 
G 



74 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

by giving them his example of patience and con- 
tinuance in the work. He took up his residence 
at Aldeen, near Calcutta, in the house of an English 
clergyman ; where, after recovering from a dan- 
gerous attack of fever, he experienced great en- 
joyment in the company of several Christians, 
missionaries and others, established in the neigh- 
bourhood. Strong persuasions were used to induce 
him to remain in Calcutta, but that city was sup- 
plied in some measure with the gospel, and it was 
his intention to devote himself to more remote hea- 
thens. The celebrated Dr. Buchanan had left 
Calcutta on a journey to Syria, at the very time 
that Martyn was arriving, and too soon to know that 
God had thus answered the prayers which he and 
his brethren had been for some time addressing to 
heaven, for the sending of more missionaries to 
India. 

On the fifteenth of October, Mr. Martyn left 
Aldeen and Calcutta for Dinapore, a town on the 
Ganges, more than three hundred miles distant.. 
He went in a boat called a budgerow, with a cabin 
fitted for travelling ; which, as it is moved principal- 
ty by towing with poles, does not go farther than 
about twenty miles in a day, stopping in the even- 
ing. He employed his time in studying the eastern 
languages, in which he was assisted by a native 
teacher, called a moonshee, who accompanied him. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 75 

He several times witnessed the idolatrous cere- 
monies of the people, and made some attempts to 
convince them of the sinfulness and folly of the 
devotion they paid to idols of their own carving, 
and to the river Ganges itself. At several villages 
on the route he attempted to speak to the people, 
and distributed tracts. Some parts of his own nar- 
rative of this tour, will show how he employed 
himself, and how he was upheld in his purpose 
amidst all discouragements. 

" Oct. 19^.— Sunday. The first solitary Sab- 
bath spent among the heathen : but my soul not 
forsaken of God. The prayers of my dear friends 
were instant for me this day, I well perceive : and 
a great part of my prayer was occupied in delight- 
ful intercession for them. The account of the fall 
of man, in the third chapter of Genesis, and of his 
restoration by Christ, was unspeakably affecting to 
my soul. Indeed, every thing I read seemed to 
be carried home to my soul with ineffable sweet- 
ness and power by the Spirit ; and all that was 
within me blessed His holy name. In the after- 
noon, sent to the moonshee, that he might hear the 
gospel read, or read it himself. Began St. Mark ; 
—but our conversation turning from Christian- 
ity to Mohammedism, became deadening to my 
spirit. Our course to-day was along the eastern 
bank, which seems to have been lately the bed of 



76 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

the river, and is bare of trees for a considerable 
distance from the water. The western bank is 
covered with wood. In my evening walk saw three 
skeletons." 

" Oct. 20th. — Employed all the day in translat- 
ing the first chapter of the Acts into Hindoostanee. 
I did it with some care, and wrote it all out in the 
Persian character ; yet still I am surprised I do so 
little. I walked into the village where the boat 
stopped for the night, and found the worshippers 
of Cali by the sound of their drums and cymbals. 
I did not think of speaking to them, on account of 
their being Bengalees. But, being invited by the 
Brahmins* to walk in, I entered within the railing, 
and asked a few questions about the idol. The 
Brahmin, who spoke bad Hindoostanee, disputed 
with great heat, and his tongue ran faster than I 
could follow ; and the people, who were about one 
hundred, shouted applause. But I continued to 
ask my questions, without making any remarks 
upon the answers. I asked, among other things, 
whether what I had heard of Vishnu and Brahma 
was true ; which he confessed. I forbore to press 
him with the consequences, which he seemed to 
feel; and then I told him what was my belief. — 
The man grew quite mild, and said it was chula 
bat (good words ;) and asked me seriously, at last, 
* Hindoo priests. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 77 

what I thought- — ' was idol worship true or false V 
I felt it a matter of thankfulness that I could make 
known the truth of God, though but a stammerer ; 
^ and that I had declared it in the presence of the 
devil. And this also I learnt, that the power of 
gentleness is irresistible. I never was more aston- 
ished than at the change in deportment of this hot- 
headed Brahmin." 

" Oct. 21. — Afternoon, with my moonshee, cor- 
recting Acts i., and felt a little discouraged at finding 
I still wrote so incorrectly, though much pleased 
at this great apparent desire of having it perfectly 
accurate. Though not joyful in my spirit, as when 
my friends left me, I feel my God to be an all- 
satisfying portion, and find no want of friends. 
Read Genesis and Luke ; — at night in the Septu- 
agint and Hindoostanee." 

" Oct. 22. — A Brahmin of my own age was per- 
forming his devotions to the Ganges early this 
morning, when I was going to prayer. My soul 
was struck with the sovereignty of God, who, out 
of pure grace, had made such a difference in all 
the external circumstances of our lives. O let not 
that man's earnestness rise up in judgment against 
me at the last day ! — In the afternoon, they were 
performing the ceremony of throwing the images 
of Cali, collected from several villages, into the 
river. In addition to the usual music, there were 
g 2 



78 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

trumpets. The objects of worship, which were 
figures most gorgeously bedecked with tinsel, were 
kept under a little awning in their respective boats. 
As the budgerow passed through the boats, they 
turned, so as to present the front of their goddess 
to me ; and at the same time, blew a blast with 
their trumpet, evidently intending to gratify me 
with a sight of what appeared to them so fine. Had 
their employment been less impious, I should have 
returned the compliment by looking ; but I turned 
away." 

" Came- to on the eastern bank, below a village 
called Ahgadeep. Wherever I walked, the women 
fled at the sight of me. Some men were sitting 
under the shed dedicated to their goddess ; and a 
lamp was burning in her place. A conversation 
soon began ; but there was no one who could 
speak Hindoostanee ; so all I could say was by the 
medium of my mussulman interpreter. They said 
that they only did as others did ; and that, if they 
were wrong, then all Bengal was wrong. I felt 
love for their souls, and longed for utterance to de- 
clare unto these poor simple people, the holy gos- 
pel. I think that when my mouth is opened, I 
shall preach to them day and night. I feel that 
they are my brethren in the flesh ; — precisely on a 
level with myself." 

%' Oct. 2bth. — Had a very solemn season of 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 79 

prayer, by the favour of God, over some of the 

chapters of Genesis ; but especially at the conclu- 
sion of the 119th Psalm. O that these holy reso- 
lutions and pious breathings were entirely my own ! 
Adored be the never-failing mercy of God ! He 
has made my happiness to depend, not on the un- 
certain connexions of this life, but upon his own 
most blessed self, — a portion that never faileth. — 
Came -to on the eastern bank. The opposite side 
was very romantic ; — adorned with a stately range 
of very high forest trees, whose deep dark shade 
seemed impenetrable to the light. — In my evening 
walk enjoyed great solemnity of feeling, in the 
view of the world as a mere wilderness, through 
which the children of God are passing to a better 
country. It was a comforting and a solemn thought, 
and was unspeakably interesting to me at the time, 
that God knew whereabouts his people were in 
the wilderness, and was supplying them with just 
what they wanted." 

" Oct. 26th. — Sunday. Passed this Lord's day 
with great comfort, and much solemnity of soul. 
Glory to God for his grace ! Reading the scrip- 
tures and prayer took up the first part of the day. 
Almost every chapter I read was blest to my soul ; 
particularly the last chapter of Isaiah : ' It shall 
come, that I will gather all nations and tongues ; 
and they shall come, and see my glory,' &c. Re- 



80 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

joice, my soul, in the sure promises of Jehovah. 
How happy am I, when, in prep;: ring for the work 
of declaring his glory among the Gentiles, I think, 
that many of the Lord's saints have been this day 
remembering their unworthy friend. I felt as if I 
could never be tired with prayer. In the afternoon, 
read one of Gilbert's French Sermons ; Bates on 
Death ; and some of the Nagree Gospels. In the 
evening, we came -to on the eastern bank. I walk- 
ed into a neighbouring village, with some tracts. 
The children ran away in great terror ; and though 
there were some men here and there, I found no 
opportunity or encouragement to try if there were 
any that could speak Hindoostanee : however, I 
felt vexed with myself for not taking more pains to 
do them good. Alas ! while Satan is destroying 
their souls, does it become the servants of God to 
be lukewarm ?" 

" Oct, 27th. — Arrived at Berhampore. In the 
evening, walked out to see the cantonments at the 
hospital, in which there were one hundred and fifty 
European soldiers sick. I was talking to a man, 
said to be dying, when a surgeon entered. I went 
up, and made some apology for entering the hos- 
pital. It was my old school-fellow and townsman, 

. The remainder of the evening he spent 

with me in my budgerow. He pressed me much 
to stay longer with him, which I refused ; but af- 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 81 

! terwards, on reflection, I thought it my duty to stay 
a little longer ; thinking I might have an opportu- 
nity of preaching to the soldiers." 

" Oct. 28th. — Rose very early, and was at the 
hospital at day-light. Waited there a long time, 
wandering up and down the wards, in hopes of in- 
ducing the men to get up and assemble ; but it was 
in vain. I left three books with them, and went 
away amidst the sneers and titters of the common 
soldiers. Certainly it is one of the greatest crosses 
I am called to bear, to take pains to make people 
hear me. It is such a struggle between a sense 
of propriety and modesty, on the one hand, and a 
sense of duty, on the other, that I find nothing 
equal to it. I could force my way any where, 
in order to introduce a brother minister: but for 

myself, I act with hesitation and pain. Mr. 

promised to ask the head surgeon's permission for 
me to preach, and appointed the hour at which I 
should come. I went there : but after waiting two 
hours, was told that the surgeon was gone without 
being spoken to, — and many other excuses were 
made. So, as it was now the heat of the day, I 
saw it was of no use to make any more attempts ; 
and therefore I went on my way." 

" Nov. 2. — Sunday. My mind was greatly op- 
pressed, that I had done, and was doing nothing in 
the way of distributing tracts. To free my con- 



82 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

science from the charge of unprofitableness and 
neglect, I wished to go ashore in the middle of the 
day, wherever I thought I might meet people ; but 
did not land till we came-to, on the banks of the 
Ganges, which we entered just before sunset. 
Walking on shore, I met with a very large party ; 
and entering into conversation, I asked if any of 
them could read. One young man, who seemed 
superior in rank to the rest, said he could, and 
accordingly read some of the only Nagree tract 
that I had. I then addressed myself boldly to 
them, and told them of the gospel. When speak- 
ing of the inefTicacy of the religious practices of 
the Hindoos, I mentioned as an example, the re- 
petition of the name of Ram. The young man 
assented to this; and said * of what use is it!' 
As he seemed to be of a pensive turn, and said 
this with marks of disgust, I gave him a Nagree 
Testament; — the first I have given. May God's 
blessing go along with it, and cause the eyes of 
multitudes to be opened ! The men said they 
should be glad to receive tracts ; so I sent them 
back a considerable number by the young man. 
The idea of printing the Parables, in proper order, 
with a short explanation subjoined to each, for the 
purpose of distribution, and as school-books, sug- 
gested itself to me to-night, and delighted me pro- 
digiously." 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 83 

" Nov. 8th. — Early this morning reached Raje- 
| mahl, and walked to view the remains of its ancient 
( splendour. Gave a tract or two to a Brahmin ; but 
| the Dak moonshee, a Mussulman, when he receiv- 
ed one of the Hindoostanee tracts^ and found what 
it was, was greatly alarmed : and after many awk- 
ward apologies, returned it, saying that i a man who 
had his legs in two different boats, was in danger 
of sinking between them.' Went on, much dis- 
couraged at the suspicion and rebuffs I met with, 
1 or rather pained ; for I feel not the less determined 
to use every effort to give the people the gospel. 
Oh ! that the Lord would pour out upon them a 
spirit of deep concern for their souls ! In a walk, 
at Rajemahl, met some of the hill people. Wrote 
down from their mouth some of the names of things. 
; From their appearance, they seemed connected with 
the Hottentots and Chinese. Passed the day in 
correcting Acts, chapter iii. with the moonshee. 
At night walked with Mr. G — , into a village, 
I where we met with some more of the hill people. 
With one of them, who was a manghee, or chief 
of one of the hills, I had some conversation in 
Hindoostanee ; and told him that wicked men, after 
death, go to a place of fire ; and good men, above, 
to God. The former struck him exceedingly. He 
asked again, ' What ? do they go to a place of great 
pain and fire V These people, he said, sacrifice 



84 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

oxen, goats, pigeons, Sic. I asked him if he knew 
what this was for, and then explained the design 
of sacrifices ; and told him of the great sacrifice ; 
but he did not seem to understand me, and ap- 
peared pensive, after hearing that wicked men go 
to hell. He asked us, with great kindness, to have 
some of his wild honey ; which was the only 
thing he had to offer. How surprising is the uni- 
versal prevalence of sacrifices ! This circumstance 
will, perhaps, be made use of for the universal 
conversion of the nations. How desirable that 
some missionary should go among these peo- 
ple ! — No prejudices — none of the detestable pride 
and self-righteousness of their neighbours in the 
plains." 

" Nov. 9th. — Passed the Sabbath rather uncom- 
fortably. With Mr. — - — , I read several portions 
of the sacred scriptures, and prayed in the after- 
noon. We reached Sicily gully, a point where 
the Rajemahl hills jut out into the Ganges. It 
was a romantic spot. We went ashore, and as- 
cended an eminence to look at the ruins of a 
mosque. The grave, and room over it, of a Mus- 
sulman warrior, killed in battle, were in perfect 
preservation ; and lamps are still lighted there 
every night. We saw a few more of the hill 
people ; one of whom had a bow and arrows ; 
they were in a hurry to be gone ; and went 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 85 

off, men, women, and children, into their native 
woods. As I was entering the boat, I happened 
to touch with my stick the brass pot of one of 
the Hindoos, in which rice was boiling. So de- 
filed are we in their sight, that they thought the 
pollution passed from my hand, through the stick 
and the brass, to the meat. He rose and threw it 
all away." 

" Nov. 13th. — This morning we passed Col- 
gong. I went ashore and had a long conversation 
with two men. As I approached more and more 
to religion, they were the more astonished ; and 
when I mentioned the day of judgment, they 
looked at each other in the utmost wonder, with 
a look that expressed, * how should he know any 
thing about that V I felt some satisfaction in 
finding myself pretty well understood in what I 
said : but they could not read : and no people 
came near us, and so I had the grief of leaving 
this place without supplying it with one ray of 
light. Looking around this country, and reflect- 
ing upon its state, is enough to overwhelm the 
mind of a minister or missionary. When once 
my mouth is opened, how shall I ever dare to be 
silent? Employed as yesterday. At night met 
some boatmen on the bank, and a Fakir with 
them : I talked a good deal, and some things they 
understood. The Fakir's words I could scarcely 
H 



86 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

understand. As he said he could read, and pro- 
mised to read a Testament, I gave him one, and 
several tracts*' ' 

" Nov. 17th. — Early this morning they set me 
ashore to see a hot spring. A great number of 
Brahmins and Fakirs* were there. Not being 
able to understand them, I gave away tracts. 
Many followed me to the budgerow, where I gave 
away more tracts and some testaments. Arrived 
at Monghir about noon. In the evening some 
came to me for books ; and, among them, those 
who had travelled from the spring, having heard 
the report that I was giving away copies of the 
Ramayuna.f They would not believe me when 
I told them that it was not the Ramayuna ; I 
gave them six or eight more. In the morning 
tried to translate, with the moonshee, one of the 
Nagree papers." 

" Nov. 18th. — A man followed the budgerow 
along the walls of the fort; and finding an op- 
portunity, got on board with another, begging for 
a book — not believing but that it was the Rama- 
yuna. As I hesitated, having given as many as I 
could spare for one place, he prostrated himself to 
the earth, and placed his forehead in the dust ; at 
which I felt an indescribable horror. I gave them 

* Men, professing to be religious, who live upon charity, 
t A poem called sacred by the Hindoos. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 87 

-each a testament. Employed in writing out the 
parables, and translating. In the evening met with 
two villagers, and finding they could read, I brought 
them to the boat, and gave them each a Testament, 
and some tracts." 

" Nov. 19th. — Employed in translating the para- 
bles, all the day. Finished reading the first book 
of the Ramayuna. Came-to at a desert place on 
the north side ; where, in my walk, I met with a 
man with whom I conversed ; but we could under- 
stand each other but very little. To a boy with 
him, who could read, I gave some tracts. Felt 
extraordinarily wearied with my labour these two 
or three last days ; and should have been glad of 
some refreshing conversation," 



CHAPTER VI. 

Mr. Martyn arrived at Dinapore, on the 26th 
November : his principal objects, besides discharg- 
ing his duties as chaplain to the English residents 
there, were to establish schools for the children of 
the natives ; to learn to speak Hindoostanee ; and to 
translate the scriptures and religious tracts into 
that language, for distribution among the people. 



88 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

There are so many dialects in India, that it is a 
great labour to study the language, so as to be un- 
derstood by the inhabitants of different parts of the 
country. In these employments he persevered, 
though meeting with ridicule and opposition, not 
only from the natives, but even from his own irre- 
ligious countrymen, who formed his congregation. 
"Let me labour," he said "for fifty years, amidst 
scorn, and without seeing one soul converted ; still 
it shall not be worse for my soul in eternity, nor 
even worse for it in time." He continued to trans- 
late the parables, with explanations, and devoted 
his whole time to preparations for his missionary 
work ; excepting when he had an opportunity of 
personally addressing the natives, who could un- 
derstand him, and excepting the time spent with 
his English congregation, and the sick at the 
hospital. 

We have another proof of the reality of religion, 
and the truth of the Divine promises, in the manner 
in which Martyn was enabled to persist in his 
object, in circumstances which would have induced 
any other person, than a Christian, to abandon it in 
despair. There he stood almost alone, surrounded 
by idolaters and Mohammedans, who ridiculed his 
attempts to enlighten them ; and were not moved 
by all his arguments for the religion of Christ. 
The English who were settled there, were engaged 



LIFE OF HEJSfRV MARTYN. 89 

in trade : and it was a great object with them, that 
the natives should be kept ignorant, that they might 
be more easily managed in business concerns. Of 
course, they would not countenance the plans of 
Mr. Martyn, and scarcely treated him with respect. 
So solitary was he, amidst persons so different in 
feeling from himself, that happening to meet a poor 
Jew from Babylon, he said he " felt all the tender- 
ness of a kinsman towards him, and found himself, 
as it were, at home with an Asiatic, who acknow- 
ledged the God of Abraham." Another source of 
consolation, known only to the true follower of 
Christ, is thus intimated by him : " O how shall 
I sufficiently praise my God, that here in this 
solitude, with people enough, indeed, but with- 
out a saint, I yet feel fellowship with all those 
who, in every place, call on the name of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. I see myself travelling on with 
them, and I hope I shall worship with them in His 
courts above !" 

Notwithstanding these obstacles, such was his 
conviction of the truth of the gospel, and that it was 
his duty to persevere,- that the time passed away 
rapidly. The nature of the support and consola- 
tions, which he received, may be judged of from 
his own expressions, such as these : 

" I felt more entirely withdrawn from the world, 
than for a long time past: what a dark atheistical 
h 2 



90 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

state do I generally live in ! Alas ! that this crea* 
tion should so engross my mind, and the author of 
it be so slightly and coldly regarded. I found 
myself, at this time, truly a stranger and a pilgrim 
in the world ; and I did suppose that not a wish 
remained for any thing here. The experience of 
my heart was delightful. I enjoyed a peace that 
passeth all understanding ; no desire remained, but 
that this peace might be confirmed and increased. 
O why should any thing draw away my attention, 
whilst Thou art ever near, and ever accessible 
through the Son of Thy love ? why do I not 
always walk with God, forgetful of a vain and per- 
ishable world ? Amazing patience ! He bears with 
this faithless, foolish heart, and suffers me to 
come, laden with sins, to receive new pardon, new 
grace, every day. Why does not such love make 
me hate those sins which grieve him, and hide him 
from my sight ? I sometimes make vain resolutions, 
in my own strength, that I will think of God. 
Reason, and scripture, and experience, teach me 
that such a life is happiness and holiness ; that by 
' beholding his glory,' I should be changed * into 
his image, from glory to glory,' and be freed from 
those anxieties which make me unhappy : and that, 
every motive to duty being strong, obedience would 
be easy." 

He established, at his own expense, five schools 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 91 

for the children of the natives, in Dinapore, and 
some neighbouring places. We suppose that these 
schools were intended to enable the children to read 
and write their own language, and to receive in- 
struction in the Christian religion, so that they 
might not grow up in ignorance and idolatry like 
their parents. There are two great reasons why 
this course is, in all cases, the most proper. First, 
because, if the mind is enlightened by education, it 
is hard to persuade a person to believe in supersti- 
tions. And the second reason is, that almost all 
the feelings and beliefs that men have, are the same 
that have been impressed on them in youth, and 
have been established in some degree by the power 
of habit. It is, therefore, of the highest importance, 
that the earliest habits of a child should be good ; 
and that its instructions should be in the truth ; for, 
in almost all cases, such a child will, by the bless- 
ing of God, retain his good habits and instructions, 
and have them, at length, eternally fixed by religion. 
This is the sense of the saying of Solomon — " Train 
up a child in the way he should go, and when he 
is old he will not depart from it." 

We find the following reflections in Martyn's 
diary of the 1st of January, 1807 : 

" Seven years have passed away since I was first 
called of God. Before the conclusion of another 
seven years, how probable is it, that these hands 



92 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN, 

will have mouldered into dust ! But be it so : my 
soul, through grace, hath received the assurance of 
eternal life, and I see the days of my pilgrimage 
shortening, without a wish to add to their number. 
But 0, may I be stirred up to a faithful discharge 
of my high and awful work ; and, laying aside, as 
much as may be, all carnal cares and studies, may 
I give myself to this ' one thing.' The last has 
been a year to be remembered by me, because the 
Lord has brought me safely to India, and permitted 
me to begin, in one sense, my missionary work. 
My trials in it have been very few : every thing 
has turned out better than I expected ; loving- 
kindness and tender-mercies, have attended me at 
every step : therefore, here will I sing his praise. 
I have been an unprofitable servant but the Lord 
hath not cut me off: I have been wayward and 
perverse, yet he has brought me further on the way 
to Zion : here, then, with seven-fold gratitude and 
affection, would I stop and devote myself to the 
blissful service of my adorable Lord. May he 
continue his patience, his grace, his direction, his 
spiritual influences, and I shall at last surely come 
off conqueror! May he speedily open my mouth, 
to make known the mysteries of the gospel, and in 
great mercy grant that the heathen may receive it 
and live !"* 

In February 1807, Mr. Martyn finished the 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 93 

translation of the Episcopal Prayer-book into the 
Hindoostanee ; and on Sunday, March 15th, used 
it in public worship for the first time, concluding 
with a short address in that language. About this 
time, he also completed his translation and ex- 
planation of the Parables of our Saviour, which he 
intended, principally, for the use of the schools, but 
postponed for a while, lest it should excite so much 
prejudice as to break up the schools entirely. 
Every Sunday, he held divine service at seven in 
the morning for the English people, and at two in the 
afternoon for the natives ; after which he visited the 
sick in the hospital, and held a prayer-meeting at 
his own house in the evening, for some soldiers of 
the army, who were willing to attend. These plans 
were pursued under much discouragement ; the 
following is the diary of one Sunday : 

" The English service, at seven in the morning* 
T preached on Luke xxii. 22. As is always the 
case when I preach about Christ, a spiritual influ- 
ence was diffused over my soul. The rest of the 
morning, till dinner time, I spent, not unprofitably, 
in reading scripture, and David Brainerd, and in 
prayer. That dear saint of God, David Brainerd, 
is truly a man after my own heart. Although I 
cannot go half-way with him in spirituality and 
devotion, I cordially unite with him in such of his 
holy breathings as I have attained unto. How 



94 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

sweet and wise, like him and the saints of old, to 
pass through this world as a serious and consider- 
ate stranger. I have had more of this temper to-day 
than of late, and every duty has been in harmony 
with my spirit. The service in Hindoostanee was 
at two o'clock. The number of women not above 
one hundred. I expounded chapter iii. of St. 
Matthew. Notwithstanding the general apathy with 
which they seemed to receive every thing, there 
were two or three who, I was sure, understood and 
felt something. But, beside them, not a single 
Creature, European or native, was present. Yet 
true spirituality, with all its want of attraction for 
the carnal heart, did prevail over the splendid shows 
of Greece and Rome, and shall again here. A 
man at the hospital much refreshed me, by ob- 
serving, that if I made an acquisition of but one 
convert in my whole life, it would be a rich re- 
ward ; and that I was taking the only possible way 
to this end." 

There were, however, some of the officers, wha 
evinced serious feelings ; and one was brought to 
embrace the offers of salvation. Martyn longed 
for the time when he should be qualified to go into 
the midst of the Hindoos with the gospel. " 0," 
said he, in a letter to Mr. Corrie, missionary at 
another station, " that the time were come that I 
should be able to carry the war into the enemy's 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 95 

territory. It will be a severe trial to the flesh, my 
dear brother, for us both ; — but it is sufficient for 
the disciple to be as his master, and the servant as 
his Lord. We shall be 'accounted as the filth of 
the world, and the off-scouring of all things.' But 
glory be to God, if we shall be accounted wor- 
thy to suffer shame for the name of the Lord 
Jesus." 

His journal of a trip to Monghir, about a hun- 
dred miles distant, shows the distress he felt, 
because his zeal was not greater, and because he 
was not so holy and spiritual as he desired to be. 
He had, no doubt, just reasons for lamenting many 
neglected opportunities for doing good, and for de- 
ploring the many wanderings of his heart from 
God ; but we are not to understand that he was 
outwardly wicked or careless, when he speaks of his 
condition in such strong language. 

" After finishing the correction of the parables, I 
left Dinapore to go to Monghir. Spent the even- 
ing at Patna, with Mr. G , in talking on literary 

subjects : but my soul was overwhelmed with a 
sense of my guilt, in not striving to lead the 
conversation to something that might be for his 
spiritual good. My general backwardness to speak 
on spiritual subjects before the unconverted, made 
me groan in spirit at such unfeelingness and unbe- 
lief. May the remembrance of what I am made to 



96 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

suffer for these neglects, be one reason for greater 
zeal and love in time to come." 

" April 19th. — A melancholy Lord's day ! In 
the morning, at the appointed hour, I found some 
solemnity and tenderness : the whole desire of my 
soul seemed to be, that all the ministers in India 
might be eminently holy ; and that there might be 
no remains of that levity or indolence, in any of 
us, which I found in myself. The rest of the day 
passed heavily ; for a hurricane of hot wind fast- 
ened us on a sand-bank, for twelve hours ; while 
the dust was suffocating, and the heat increased the 
sickness which was produced by the tossing of the 
boat, and I frequently fell asleep over my work. 
However, the more I felt tempted to impatience 
and unhappiness, the more the Lord helped me to 
strive against it, and to look to the fulness of Jesus 
Christ. Several hymns were very sweet to me — 
particularly, 

'There is a fountain filled with blood, 

Drawn from Immanuel's veins ; 
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 
Lose all their guilty stains. 

c The dying thief rejoiced to see 

That fountain in his day ; 
O may [ there, though viie as he, 
Wash all my sins away ! 

4 Dear dying Lamb ! thy precious blood 

Shall never lose its power, 
Till all the ransomed church of God 
Be saved, to sin no more. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 97 

s ' E'er since by faith I saw the stream 
Thy flowing wounds supply, 
Redeeming love has been my theme, 
And shall be till I die. 

' But when this lisping, stammering tongue 

Lies silent in the grave, 
Then, in a nobler, sweeter song, 
I'll sing thy power to save.' 

"After all the acquisitions of human science, 
what is there to be compared with the knowledge 
of Christ, and him crucified ! — Read much of the 
scripture history of Saul, and the predictions in the 
latter end of the Revelation." 

" April 21st, — -Again the love and mercy of the 
Lord restored me to health and spirits. Began to 
write a sermon on walking in Christ, and found my 
soul benefited by meditation on the subject. In the 
afternoon went on with translations. Arrived at 
sun-set at Monghir." 

" April 22d. — Spent the day at 's. Found 

twc^or three opportunities to speak to him about 

his soul. — threw out some infidel sentiments, 

which gave me an opportunity of speaking. But 
to none of the rest was I able to say any thing. 
Alas ! in what a state are mankind every-where — 
living without God in the world." 

" April 23d. — 1 left Monghir, and got on twenty- 
three miles toward Dinapore : very sorrowful in 
mind, both from the recollection of having done 
nothing for the perishing souls I have been amongst, 
I 



98 LIFE OF HENRY IVIARTYN. 

and from finding myself so unqualified to write 
on a spiritual subject, which I had undertaken. 
Alas ! the ignorance and carnality of my miserable 
soul ! how contemptible must it be in the sight of 
God!" 

" April 24th. — Still cast down at my utter ina- 
bility to write anything profitable on this subject; 
and at my execrable pride and ease of heart. O 
that I could weep in the dust, with shame and 
sorrow, for my wickedness and folly ! Yet thanks 
are due to the Lord for showing me, in this way, 
how much my heart has been neglected of late. 
I see by this, how great are the temptations of a 
missionary to neglect his own soul. Apparently 
outwardly employed for God, my heart has been 
growing more hard and proud. Let me be taught 
that the first great business on earth is to obtain 
the sanctification of my own soul : so shall I be 
rendered more capable also of performing the duties 
of the ministry, whether amongst the Europeans or 
heathen, in a holy and solemn manner. Oh ! how 
I detest that levity to which I am so subject ! How 
cruel and unfeeling is it !--God is my witness that 
I would rather, from this day forward, weep day 
and night, for the danger of immortal souls. But 
my wickedness seems to take such hold of me, that 
I cannot escape ; and my only refuge is to commit 
my soul, with all its corruption, into the hands of 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 99 

Christ, to be sanctified and saved by His almighty- 
grace. For what can I do with myself? my heart 
is so thoroughly corrupt, that I cannot keep myself 
- one moment from sin." 

" April 26th. — In prayer, at the appointed hour, 
I felt solemnity of mind, and an earnest desire 
that the Lord would, pour out a double portion 
of his Spirit upon us, his ministers in India ; that 
every one of us may be eminent in holiness and 
ministerial gifts. If I were to judge for myself, 
I should fear that God had forsaken his church ; 
for I am most awfully deficient in the knowledge 
and experience requisite for a minister ; but my 
dear brother Corrie, thanks be to God, is a man of 
a better spirit :— may he grow more and more in 
grace, and continue to be an example to us ! Passed 
the day in reading and prayer, such as my prayers 
are. My soul struggled with corruption, yet I found 
the merit and grace of Jesus all-sufficient, and all- 
supporting. Though my guilt seemed like moun- 
tains, I considered it as no reason for departing 
from Christ, but rather for clinging to him more 
closely. Thus I got through the day, cast down, 
but not destroyed." 

" April 27th. — Left Patna and arrived at Dina- 
pore. The concourse- of people in that great city 
was a solemn admonition to me to be diligent in 
study and prayer. Thousands of intelligent people 



100 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

together; no Sabbath; no word of God; no one 
to give them advice : how inscrutable the ways of 
God !" 

Martyn had made considerable progress in trans- 
lating the scriptures into the language of India ; he 
now, at the suggestion of Mr. Brown, a missionary 
near Calcutta, applied himself diligently to finish- 
ing the work, and to oversee, also, a translation 
into Persian. This became a delightful employ- 
ment, as his own expressions show. 

" The time fled imperceptibly, while so delight- 
fully engaged in the translations ; the days seemed 
to have passed like a moment. Blessed be God 
for some improvement in the languages ! May 
every thing be for edification in the church ! What 
do I not owe to the Lord, for permitting me to take 
part in a translation of his word : never did I see 
such wonder, and wisdom, and love in the blessed 
book, as since I have been obliged to study every 
expression ; and it is a delightful reflection, that 
death cannot deprive us of the pleasure of studying 
its mysteries." 

" All day on the translations : — employed a good 
while at night in considering a difficult passage ; 
and being much enlightened respecting it, I went 
to bed full of astonishment at the wonder of 
God's word : never before did I see any thing 
of the beauty of the language and the importance 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 101 

of the thoughts as I do now. I felt happy that 
I should never be finally separated from the con- 
templation of them, or of the things about which 
they ar3 written. Knowledge shall vanish away, 
but it shall be because perfection shall come. Then 
shall I see as I am seen, and know as I am known." 
" What a source of perpetual delight have I in 
the precious book of God ! that my heart were 
more spiritual, to keep pace with my understand- 
ing ; and that I could feel as I know ! May my 
root and foundation be deep in love, and may I be 
able to ' comprehend, with all saints, what is the 
breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to 
know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge !' 
And may I be filled with all the fulness of God ! 
May the Lord, in mercy to my soul, save me from 
setting up an idol of any sort in his place ; as I do 
by preferring even a work professedly done for 
him, to communion with him. How obstinate is 
the reluctance of the natural heart to love God ! 
But, O my soul, be not deceived ; thy chief work 
upon earth is, to obtain sanctification, and to walk 
with God. ' To obey is better than sacrifice, and 
to hearken than the fat of rams.' Let me learn 
from this, that to follow the direct injunctions of 
God, as to my own soul* is more my duty, than to 
be engaged in other works, under pretence of doing 
him service." 

i2 



102 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

" How sweet the retirement in which I here live. 
The precious word is now my only study, in the 
work of translation. Though, in a manner, buried 
to the world,— neither seeing nor seen by Europe- 
ans, — the time flows on here with great rapidity : it 
seems as if life would be gone before any thing is 
done, or even before any thing is begun. I some* 
times rejoice that I am not twenty-seven years of 
age ; and that, unless God should order it other- 
wise, I may double the number in constant and 
successful labour.. If not, God has many, many 
more instruments at command; and I shall not 
cease from my happiness, and scarcely from my 
work, by departing into another world. Oh ! what 
shall separate us. from the love of Christ ! Neither 
death nor life, I am persuaded. Oh! let me feel 
my security, that 1 may be, as^ it were, already in 
heaven ; that I may do all my work as the angels 
do theirs ; and oh! let me be ready for every 
work !— be ready to leave this delightful solitude, 
or, remain in it ; to go out, or go in ; to stay, or 
depart, just as the Lord shall appoint. Lord, let 
me have no will of my own ; nor consider my true 
happiness as depending in the smallest degree on 
any thing that can befal my outward man ; but as 
consisting altogether in conformity to God's will. 
May I have Christ here with me in this world; 
not substituting imagination in the place of faith ; 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 103 

but seeing outward things as they really are, 
and thus obtaining a radical conviction of their 
vanity." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Mr. Martyn now received intelligence from 
England of the death of his eldest, sister, an event 
which very deeply afflicted him ; but which caused 
him to feel fresh confidence in God, and a new in- 
terest in heaven. 

" great and gracious God ! what should I do 
without Thee ! But now thou art manifesting 
thyself as the God of all consolation to my soul :— 
never was I so near thee :— I stand on the brink, 
and long to take my flight. There is not a 
4hing in the world for which I could wish to 
live, except the hope that it may please God 
to appoint me some work. And how shall my 
soul ever be thankful enough to thee, O thou 
most incomprehensibly glorious Saviour Jesus ! O 
what hast thou done to alleviate the sorrows of 
life ! and how great has been the mercy of God 
towards my family, in saving us all ! How dread- 
ful would be the separation jof relations in death, 
were it not for Jesus." 



104 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

" The European letter," he wrote to Mr. Brown, 
" contained the intelligence of the death of my 
eldest sister. A few lines received from herself 
about three weeks ago, gave me some melancholy 
forebodings of her danger. But though the Lord 
thus compassionately prepared me for this affliction, 
I hardly knew how to bear it. We were more 
united in affection to each other, than to any of our 
relations : and now she is gone, I am left to fulfil, 
as a hireling, my day, and then I shall follow her. 
She had been many years under some conviction 
of her sins, but not till her last illness had she 
sought in earnest for salvation. Some weeks be- 
fore her death she felt the burden of sin, and cried 
earnestly for pardon and deliverance, and con- 
tinued in the diligent use of the appointed means 
of grace. Two days before her death, when no 
immediate danger was apprehended, my youngest 
sister visited her ; and was surprised and delighted 
at the change which had taken place. Her con- 
victions of sin were deep, and her views clear ; her 
only fear was on account of her own unworthiness. 
She asked, with many tears, whether there was 
mercy for one who had been so great a sinner^ 
though in the eyes of the world she had been an 
exemplary wife and mother ; and said that she 
believed the Lord would have mercy upon her, 
because she knew he had wrought on her mind 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 105 

by His Spirit. Two days after this conversation, 
she suddenly and unexpectedly left this world of 
woe, while her sister was visiting a dying friend at 
^ distance. This, you will tell me, is precious 
consolation ; indeed I am constrained to acknow- 
ledge that I could hardly ask for greater ; for I had 
already parted with her for ever in this life ; and, 
in parting, all I wished for was, to hear of her 
being converted to God, and, if it was his will, 
taken away in due time, from the evil to come, and 
brought to glory before me. Yet human nature 
bleeds ; her departure has left this world a frightful 
blank to me ; and I feel not the smallest wish to 
live, except there be some work assigned for me to 
do in the church of God." 

And sometime afterwards he wrote, " My heart 
is still oppressed, but it is not * a sorrow that 
worketh death.' Though nature weeps at being 
deprived of all hopes of ever seeing this dear com- 
panion on earth, faith is thereby brought the more 
into exercise. How sweet to feel dead to all below ; 
to live only for eternity ; to forget the short interval 
that lies between us and the spiritual world ; and 
to live always seriously. The seriousness which 
this sorrow produces, is indescribably precious ; O 
that I could always retain it, when these impres- 
sions shall be worn away !" 

In September he introduced Christ's Sermon on 



106 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

the mount as a lesson for the schools; the first 
time he had been privileged to hear the natives 
reading and learning any portion of the sacred 
scriptures. He declined the urgent request of his 
friends in Calcutta, to establish himself there, saying, 
that however delightful it would be, to be placed 
in the society of the missionaries and their families, 
he wished to remain more in the midst of the hea- 
then, upon whom he desired to expend his labours. 
His solitude was also rendered more painful, by 
the disappointment of his hopes of marriage with 
the lady at Cornwall, to whom he was engaged, 
but who now felt obliged to decline the union, for 
reasons which Mr. Martyn himself admitted to be 
proper. He bore this trial with much meekness : 
he said, " The Lord sanctify this : and since this 
last desire of my heart is also withheld, may I turn 
away for ever from the world, and henceforth live 
forgetful of all but God. With thee, O my God, 
is no disappointment. I shall never have to regret, 
that I have loved thee too well. Thou hast said, 
1 delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee 
the desires of thy heart.' " 

" At first I was more grieved," he wrote some 
time afterwards, " at the loss of my gourd, than 
for all the perishing Ninevehs around me ; but now 
my earthly woes and earthly attachments seem to 
be absorbing in the vast concern of communicating 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 10? 

the gospel to these nations. After this last lesson 
from God on the vanity of the creature, I feel de- 
sirous to be nothing, to have nothing, to ask for 
nothing, but what he gives." 

And at the close of the year, he thus spoke of 
this event, and the death of his sister : 

" On both these afflictions I have seen love in- 
scribed, and that is enough. What I think I want, 
it is better still to want : but I afti often wearied 
with this world of wo. I set my affections' on the 
creature, and am then torn from it ; and from vari- 
ous other causes, particularly the prevalence of sin 
in my heart, I am often so full of melancholy, that 
I hardly know what to do for relief. Sometimes 
I say, ' O that I had wings like a dove, then would 
I flee away and be at rest ;' at other times, in my 
sorrow about the creature, I have no wish left for 
my heavenly rest. It is the grace and favour 
of God that have saved me hitherto : my igno- 
rance^ waywardness, and wickedness, would long 
since have plunged me into misery ; but there 
seems to be a mighty exertion of mercy and grace 
upon my sinful nature, every day, to keep me from 
perishing at last. My attainments in the divine 
life, in this last year, seem to be none at all ; 1 
appear, on the contrary, to be more self-willed 
and perverse ; and more like many of my country- 
men, in arrogance and a domineering spirit over 



108 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

the natives. The Lord save me from my wicked- 
ness ! Henceforth let my soul, humbly depending 
upon the grace of Christ, perfect holiness in the 
fear of God, and show towards all, whether Euro- 
peans or natives, the mind that was in Christ 
Jesus." 

Mr. Martyn had two assistants in his Indian and 
Persian translations, one named M irza, of Hindoos- 
tan, the other Sabat, an Arabian. The latter of 
these, for some time, professed to be a convert to 
Christianity, but afterwards returned to Moham- 
medism. Sabat's temper and behaviour were so 
inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel, that he 
gave Mr. Martyn great uneasiness ; but his expres- 
sions of a desire to reform seemed so sincere, that 
he was long regarded as a genuine Christian, whom, 
it was hoped, more light, and knowledge, and 
grace, would gradually lead aright. 

In March, 1808, Martyn completed the New 
Testament in Hindoostanee, and sent it to Calcutta 
to be printed. The correcting of the sheets as 
they came from the press, occupied much of his 
time : besides which, he superintended and com- 
pared the Persian translation by Sabat, and studied 
the Arabic, that he might have a translation made 
into that language also. He received visits daily, 
from such of his congregation as were serious, and 
visited the hospital as usual. In consequence of 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 109 

the want of a proper place for public worship at 
Dinapore, he held meeting's at his own house. On 
the first Sunday, he preached from Isaiah iv. 5. 
"The Lord will create upon every dwelling- 
place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a 
cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a 
flaming fire by night : for upon all the glory shall 
be a defence." " In the afternoon," his diary re- 
lates, " I waited for the women, but not one came : 
perhaps, by some mistake, notice had not been given 
them. At the hospital, and with the men at night, 
I was engaged, as usual, in prayer : my soul panted 
after the living God, but it remained tied and bound 
with corruption. I felt as if I could have given 
the world to be brought to be alone with God ; and 
the promise that ' this is the will of God, even our 
sanctification,' — was the right hand that upheld me 
while I followed after Him. When low in spirits, 
through an unwillingness to take up the cross, I 
found myself more resigned in endeavouring to 
realise the thought which had often composed me 
in my trials on board the ship ; namely, that I was 
born to suffer ; that suffering is my appointed daily 
portion ; let this reconcile me to every thing ! To 
have a will of my own, not agreeable to God's, is 
a most tremendous wickedness. I own it is so, 
for a few moments : but, Lord, write it on my 
heart ! In perfect meekness and resignation let 
K 



110 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

me take whatever befalls me in the path of duty, 
and never dare to think of being dissatisfied." 

In June, the gospel of Matthew was finished in 
Persian, and sent to Calcutta, where it was printed 
at the expense of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society. In the summer he suffered a severe 
attack of illness, his reflections on which show 
the spirituality of his feelings, and the -joy fulness 
of his prospects of eternity. 

" I little thought to have had my faith brought 
to a trial so soon. This morning, while getting up, 
I found a pain in the centre of my body, which in- 
creased to such a degree, that fever and vertigo 
came on, and I fainted. The dreadful sensation 
was like what I once felt in England, but by no 
means so violent or long-continued ; as then, also, 
I was alone. After recovering my senses, and lying 
in pain which almost made me breathless, I turned 
my thoughts to God ; and oh ! praise to his grace 
and love, I felt no fear; but I prayed earnestly 
that I might have a little relief to set my house in 
order, and make my will. I also thought with 
pain, of leaving the Persian gospels unfinished. By 
means of some ether, the Lord gave me ease, and 
I made my will. The day was spent in great weak- 
ness, but my heart was often filled with the sweetest 
peace and gratitude for the precious things God 
hath done for me," 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. Ill 

" I found delight at night in considering, from 
the beginning, all that God had done in creation, 
providence, and grace, for my soul. O God of 
love, how shall I praise Thee ! — happiness, bliss 
for ever, lies before me. Thou hast brought me 
upon this stage of life to see what sin and misery 
are ; myself, alas ! most deeply partaking in both. 
But the days and the works of my former state, 
fraught with danger and with death, are no more ; 
and the God of benevolence and love hath opened 
to me brighter prospects. Thine I am ; * My 
beloved is mine, and I am his ;' and now I want 
none but Thee. I am alone with Thee in this 
world ; and when I put off this mortal tabernacle, 
I shall still be with Thee, whatever that unknown 
change may be ; and I shall be before Thee, not to 
receive honour, but to ascribe praise. Yes ! I shall 
then have power to express my feelings ; I shall 
then, without intermission, see and love ; and no 
cloud of sorrow overcast my mind. I shall then 
sing in worthy, everlasting strains, the praises of 
that divine Redeemer, whose works of love now 
reach beyond my conception." 

Some portions of his letters to the Rev. Messrs. 
Corrie and Brown, at Calcutta, during this year, 
and part of 1809, will show his labours, trials, and 
consolations, in a better manner than our narrative 
could. 



112 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

" 1 do not know how you find the heat, but here 
it is dreadful : in one person's quarters yesterday- 
it was at 102° : perhaps it was on that account that 
scarcely any women came. Another reason I 
assign is, that I rebuked one of them last Sunday, 
yet very gently, for talking and laughing in the 
church before I came ; so yesterday they showed 
their displeasure by not coming at all. I spoke to 
them on the parable of the Great Supper : the old 
woman, who is always so exemplary in her atten r 
tion, shed many tears ; I have sometimes endea- 
voured to speak to her, but she declines conversa- 
tion. I feel interested about her, there is so much 
sorrow and meekness depicted in her countenance ; 
but she always crosses herself after the service is 
over. My Europeans, this week, have not attend- 
ed very well ; fifteen only, instead of twenty-five ; 
some of them, indeed, are in the hospital ; and the 
hospital is a town of itself ;— -how shall I ever be 
faithful to them all !" 

" Among the events of the last week is the earth- 
quake ; we were just reading the passage of the 
24th of Matthew, on ' earthquakes in divers places,' 
when I felt my chair shake under me ; then some 
pieces of the plaster fell ; on which I sprang up 
and ran out; — the doors had still a tremulous 
motion." 

"I groan at the wickedness and infidelity of 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN- 113 

men, and seem to stretch my neck every way to 
espy a righteous man. All at Dinapore treat the 
gospel with contempt ; here there is nothing but 
infidelity." 

" A young civilian, who some time ago came to 
me desiring satisfaction on the evidences of Chris- 
tianity, and to whom I spoke very freely, and with 
some regard, as I could not doubt his sincerity, now 
holds me up to ridicule. Thus, through evil report, 
we go on. Oh ! my brother ! how happy I feel, 
that all have not forsaken Christ ; that I am not 
left alone even in India. 'Cast thy burden on the 
Lord, and he shall sustain thee,' is the text I carry 
about with me, and I can recommend it to any 
body as an infallible preservative from the fever of 
anxiety." 

" The day after I wrote to you from Bankipore, 
I called on the Nawaub,* Babir Ali Khan, cele- 
brated for his sense and liberality. I staid two 
hours with him, conversing in Persian, but badly. 
He began the theological discussion by requesting 
me to explain necessity and free-will ; I instantly 
pleaded ignorance. He gave his own opinion ; on 
which I asked him for his proofs of the religion of 
Mohammed. His first argument was the eloquence 
of the Koran ; but he at last acknowledged that this 
was insufficient. I then brought forward a passage 
* Or Nabob, the name of an office. 
k2 



114 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN« 

or two in the Koran, containing sentiments mani- 
festly false and foolish ; he flourished a good deal, 
but concluded by saying, that I must wait till I 
could speak Persian better, and had read their logic. 
This was the first visit, and I returned highly de- 
lighted with his sense, candour, and politeness. 
Two days after I went to breakfast with him, and 
conversed with him in Hindoostanee. He inquired 
what are the principles of the Christian religion ; I 
began with the atonement, the divinity of Christ, 
the corruption of human nature, the necessity of 
regeneration, and a holy life. He seems to wish 
to acquire information, but discovers no spiritual 
desire after the truth." 

"I mentioned to you that I had spoken very 
plainly to the women last Sunday, on the delusions 
of the papists : yesterday only seven came. I as- 
cribed it to what I had said ; but to-day Sabat tells 
me that they pour contempt upon it all. Sabat, 
instead of comforting and encouraging me in my 
disappointments and trials, aggravates my pain by 
contemptuous expressions of the perfect inutility 
of continuing to teach them. He may spare his 
sarcastic remarks ; as I suppose, after another Sun- 
day, none at all will come. I find no relief but in 
prayer : to God I can tell all my griefs, and find 
comfort." 

" One day this week, on getting up in the morn- 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 115 

ing, I was attacked with a very serious illness. I 
thought I was leaving this world of sorrow ; and, 
praised be the God of grace, I felt no fear. The 
rest of the day I was filled with sweet peace. of mind, 
and had near access to God in prayer. What a 
debt of love and praise do we owe ! Yesterday I 
attempted to examine the women who attended (in 
number about thirty,) in Christian knowledge ; they 
were very shy, and said that they could say no 
prayers but in Portuguese. It appears that they 
were highly incensed, and went away, saying to 
Joseph, ' We know a great deal more than your 
priest himself.' The services much weakened me 
after my late attack." 

" The men are fast dying in the hospital, yet 
they would rather be sent to Patna for some holy 
oil, than hear the word of eternal life. Two or 
three of my evening hearers are in the hospital ; 
one is prepared to die: blessed sight! The Per- 
sian of St. Mark is to be sent to-morrow, and five 
chapters of Luke, corrected. There is no news 
from down the stream ; but always glad tidings for 
us from the world above." 

The following is from a letter to his sister, in 
England : 

"lam sorry that I have not good accounts to 
give of my health ; yet no danger is to be appre- 
hended. My services on the Lord's day always 



116 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

leave me a pain in the chest, and such a great degree 
of general relaxation, that I seldom recover from it 
till Tuesday, A few days ago I was attacked with 
a fever, which, by the mercy of God, lasted but two 
days. I am now well, but must be more careful 
for the future. In this debilitating climate, the 
mortal tabernacle is frail indeed : my mind seems 
as vigorous as ever, but my delicate frame soon 
calls for relaxation ; and I must give it, though 
unwillingly ; for such glorious fields for exertion 
open all around, that I could with pleasure be 
employed from morning to night. It seems a 
providential circumstance, that the work at present 
assigned me is that of translation ; for had I gone 
through the villages, preaching, as my intention led 
me to do, I fear that by this time I should have 
been in a deep decline. In my last I gave you a 
general idea of my employments. The society 
still meet every night at my quarters, and though 
we have lost many by death, others are raised up 
in their room ; one officer, a lieutenant, is also given 
to me ; and he is not only a brother beloved, but 
a constant companion and nurse ; v so you must feel 
no apprehension that I should, be left alone in sick- 
ness ; neither on any other account should you be 
uneasy. You know that we must meet no more 
in this life : therefore, since we are, as I trust, both 
children of God by faith in Jesus Christ, it becomes 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 117 

a matter of less consequence when we leave this 
earth. Of the spread of the gospel in India, I can 
say little, because I hear nothing. Adieu, my 
jdearest sister : let us live in constant prayer, for 
ourselves, and for the church." 

The annexed extracts are from his correspond- 
ence with Messrs. Corrie and Brown : 

" I have just come out of my chapel, where, 
with my little flock, I have once more resumed my 
duties. The infrequency of my appearance among 
them of late has thinned them considerably ; and 
this effect, which I foresaw, is one of the most 
painful and lamentable consequences of my with- 
drawing from them ; but it is unavoidable, if I 
wish to prolong my life. My danger is from the 
lungs : though none of you seem to apprehend 
it. One complete service at church does more to 
consume my strength and spirits than six days 
of the hardest study, or bodily labour. Pray for 
me, my dear brother, that I may neither be rash 
nor indolent." 

" You mention a letter enclosed, but none came. 
The intelligence, however, intended to be conveyed 
by it, met my delighted eyes. Thomason is com- 
ing ! This is good. Praise be to the Lord of the 
harvest, for sending out labourers! Behold how 
the prayers of the society at Calcutta have been 
heard. I hope they will continue their supplica- 



118 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

tion ; for we want more yet, and it may please God 
yet further to bless us. You cannot leave Calcutta 
by the middle of November, and must therefore 
apply for one month's extension of leave. But 
you are unwilling to leave your flock ; and I do not 
wonder, as I have seen my sheep grievously dis- 
persed during my absence. Uncertain when I may 
come amongst them, they seldom come at all, ex- 
cept the ten or twelve who meet one another. My 
morning congregation increases as the cold weather 
advances, and yesterday there seemed to be a con- 
siderable impression. I spoke in a law -tone of 
voice, and therefore, did not feel much fatigue ; — 
after the Hindoostanee service I was very weak ; 
but at night tolerably strong again. On the whole, 
my expectations of life return. May the days thus 
prolonged be entirely His who continues them ! and 
may my work not only move on delightfully, but 
with a more devout and serious spirit !" 

" Your letter from Buxar found me in much the 
same spiritual state, as you describe yourself to be 
in ; though your description, no doubt, belongs 
more properly to me. I no longer hesitate to 
ascribe my stupor and formality, to its right cause : 
un watchfulness in worldly company. I thought 
that any temptation arising from the society of the 
people of the world, at least of such as we have 
had, was not worthy of notice ; but I find myself 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 119 

mistaken. The frequent occasions of being among 
them of late, have proved a snare to my corrupt 
heart. Instead of returning with a more elastic 
spring to severe duties,, as I expected, my heart 
wants more idleness, more dissipation. David 
Brainerd in the wilderness, — what a contrast to 
Henry Marty n ! But God be thanked that a start 
now and then interrupts the slumber. I hope to be 
up and about my Master's business ; to cast off the 
works of darkness, and to be spiritually-minded, 
which alone is life' and peace. But what a danger- 
ous country it is that we are in ; hot weather or 
cold, all is softness and luxury ; all a conspiracy to 
lull us to sleep in the lap of pleasure. While we 
pass over this enchanted ground, call, brother, ever 
and anon, and ask ' is all well V We are shepherds 
keeping watch over our flocks by night : if we fall 
asleep what is to become of them !" 

" Last Friday we had the happiness and honour 
of finishing the four gospels in Persian. The same 
evening I made some discovery respecting the 
Hebrew verb, but was unfortunately so much de- 
lighted, that I could not sleep.; in consequence of 
which, I have had a head-ache ever since. Thus 
even intellectual joys are followed by sorrow : not 
so spiritual ones. I pray continually that order 
may be preserved in my heart ; that 1 may esteem 
and delight most in that work, which is really most 



120 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

estimable and delightful, the work of Christ and 
his apostles. When this is in any measure the 
case, it is surprising how clear and. orderly the 
thoughts are on other subjects. I am still a good 
deal in the dark respecting the objects of my pur- 
suit ; but have so far an insight, that I read both 
Hebrew and Arabic with increasing pleasure and 
satisfaction." 

"I scarcely know how this week has passed, 
nor can I call to mind the circumstances of one 
single day ; so absorbed have I been in my new 
pursuit. I remember, however, that during one 
night I did not sleep a wink. Knowing what 
would be the consequence the next day, I struggled 
hard, and turned every way, that my mind might 
be diverted from what was before it ; — but all in 
vain. One discovery succeeded another, in Hebrew, 
Arabic, and Greek, so rapidly, that I was some- 
times in almost ecstacy ; but after all, I have moved 
but a step : you may scold rne if you please, but I 
am helpless. I do not turn to this study of myself, 
but it turns to me, and draws me away almost irre- 
sistibly. Still I perceive it to be a mark of a fallen 
nature to be so carried away by a pleasurs merely 
intellectual ; and, therefore, while I pray for the 
gifts of his Spirit, I feel the necessity of being still 
more earnest for His grace. ' Whether there be 
tongues they shall cease ; whether there be know- 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 121 

ledge, it shall vanish away; but charity never 
faileth.' Yesterday my mind was mercifully kept 
free the whole day : and I ministered without dis- 
traction, and moreover without fatigue. I do not 
know when I have found myself so strong. The 
state of the air affects me more than any thing else. 
On Saturday, I completed my twenty-eighth year. 
Shall I live to see another birth-day ? — it will be 
better to suppose not. I have not read Faber yet ; 
but it seems evident to me that the Xlth of Daniel, 
almost the whole of it, refers to future time. But 
as the time of accomplishing the scriptures draws 
on, knowledge shall increase. In solemn expecta- 
tion we must wait, to see how our God will come. 
How interesting are his doings ! We feel already 
some of that rapture wherewith they sing above, 
'Great and wonderful are thy works, Lord God 
Almighty ! just and true are thy ways, thou king 
of saints !' " 

" I did not write to you last week, because I was 
employed night and day, on Monday and Tuesday, 
with Sabat, in correcting some sheets for the press. 
I begin my letter, now, immediately on receiving 
yours of last week. The account of your com- 
plaint, as you may suppose, grieves me exceed- 
ingly ; not because I think that I shall outlive you, 
but because your useful labours must be reduced to 
one quarter of their present amount ; and that you 
L 



122 life of henry martyn. 

may perhaps be obliged to take a voyage to Europe^ 
which involves loss of time and money. But, O 
brother beloved ! what is life or death ? Nothing, 
to the believer in Jesus. ' He that believeth, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and he 
that liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die.' 
The first and most natural effect of sickness, as I 
have often found, is to cloud and terrify the mind. 
The attention of the soul is arrested by the idea of 
soon appearing in a new world ; and a sense of 
guilt is felt, before faith is exercised in a Redeemer : 
and for a time this will predominate ; for the same 
faith that would overcome fear in health, must be 
considerably strengthened to have the same ascend- 
ency in sickness. I trust you will long live to do 
the work of your Lord Jesus. My discoveries are 
all at an end. I am just where I was ; in perfect 
darkness, and tired of the pursuit. It is, however, 
likely that I shall be constantly speculating on the 
subject. My thirst after knowledge is very strong ; 
but I pray continually that the Spirit of God may 
hold the reins ; that I may mind the work of God 
above all things ; and consider all things else as 
merely occasional." 

The preceding extracts show the progress of 
Martyn and Sabat in their translations, the debility 
of Martyn's health, and the new temptations of 
study which were presented to his mind. In March 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 123 

1809, a large place of worship was opened, but he 
was not permitted to enjoy many services in it, as 
he was sent by the East India Company to be 
chaplain at Cawnpore, almost four hundred miles 
from Dinapore, and seven hundred from Calcutta. 
This journey he performed at the hottest season of 
the year; for two days and nights he travelled- 
without stopping, during which time the wind 
seemed to him like flames, and he lay in his pa- 
lanquin almost insensible. A lady of Cawnpore, 
speaks as follows of his tour : 

u The month of April, in the upper provinces of 
Hindoostan, is one of the most dreadful months for 
travelling throughout the year; indeed, no Euro- 
pean, at that time, can remove from place to place, 
but at the hazard of his life. But Mr. Martyn had 
that anxiety to be in the work which his heavenly 
father had given him to do, that, notwithstanding 
the violent heat, he travelled from Chunar to Cawn- 
pore, the space of about four hundred miles. At 
that time, as I well remember, the air was as hot and 
dry as that which I have sometimes felt near the 
mouth of a large oven ; — no friendly cloud, or ver- 
dant carpet of grass, to relieve the eye from the 
strong glare of the rays of the sun, pouring on the 
sandy plains of the Ganges. Thus Mr. Martyn 
travelled, journeying night and day, and arrived at 
Cawnpore in such a state, that he fainted away 



124 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

as soon as he entered the house. When we charg- 
ed him with the rashness of hazarding his life in 
this manner, he always pleaded his anxiety to get 
to the great work. He remained with us ten days, 
suffering considerably at times from fever and pain 
in the chest." 

At Cawnpore there was no church, or regular 
worship. Soon after his arrival, Martyn preached 
to the soldiers in the open air, when, such was the 
heat, although before sunrise, that many dropped 
down as they stood around him in ranks. He 
adopted the same course of public services as at 
Dinapore, and continued to superintend the Arabic 
and a new Persian translation of the New Testa- 
ment, as the first one was found too imperfect for 
publication. These duties occupied his whole time, 
excepting when his duties occasionally required 
him to take journeys to distant towns. 

Having received intelligence of the fatal illness 
of his only sister, the last tie to earthly objects 
seems to have been broken. " What is there now," 
he exclaimed, " that I should wish to live for ? O 
what a barren desert, what a howling wilderness, 
does this world appear ! But for the service of 
God and his church, and the preparation of my 
own soul, I do not know that I would wish to live 
another day." It was this sister who first attempt- 
ed to draw his attention to religion : and how must 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 125 

he now have looked back upon the day, when, as 
he confessed, the sound of the gospel from her lips 
was grating to his ear ! 



CHAPTER IX. 

Mr. Martyn had been accustomed to give alms 
to a* number of the poor natives ; and to avoid the 
frequent interruption of his studies, which their 
calls occasioned, he fixed a time for them to come 
to his door. As a great number of wretched be- 
ings was thus collected, he determined to embrace 
the opportunity of attempting to preach to them. 
Of his first address to them he has left this ac- 
count: , 

" I told them, after requesting their attention, 
that I gave with pleasure the alms I could afford, 
but wished to give them something better, namely, 
eternal riches, or the knowledge of God, which 
was to be had from God's word ; and then produc- 
ing a Hindoostanee translation of Genesis, read the 
first verse, and explained it word by word. In the 
beginning, when there was nothing, no heaven, no 
earth, but only God, he created without help, for 
his own pleasure. — But who is God? One so 
great, so good, so wise, so mighty, that none can 
l2 



126 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

know him as he ought to know : but yet we must 
know that he knows us. When we rise up, or sit 
down, or go out, he is always with us. — He created 
heaven and earth ; therefore every thing in heaven 
— sun, moon, and stars. Therefore how should 
the sun be God, or the moon be God ? He created 
every thing on earth ; therefore Ganges also: there- 
fore how should Ganges he God ? Neither are they 
like God. If a shoemaker make a pair of shoes, are 
the shoes like him ? If a man make an image,- the 
image is not like man, his maker. Infer secondly, 
if God made the heavens and the earth for you, 
and made the meat also for you, will he not also 
feed you ? Know also, that he that made heaven 
and earth can destroy them ; — and will do it ; there- 
fore fear God, who is so great ; and love God, who 
is so good." 

" I bless God," said Mr. Martyn, " for helping 
me, beyond my expectation. Yet still my corrupt 
heart looks forward to the next attempt with some 
dread." 

On the Sunday after this, he preached to at least 
five hundred of this class. 

"I did not," he remarks, " succeed so well as 
before; I suppose because I had more confidence 
in myself, and less in the Lord. I fear they did 
not understand me well ; but the few sentences 
that were clear, they applauded. Speaking to them 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 127 

of the sea and rivers, I spoke to them again of the 
Ganges, that it was no more than other rivers. 
God loved the Hindoos, — but he loved other peo- 
ple too ; and whatever river, or water, or other 
good thing he gave the Hindoos, he gave other 
people also : for all are alike before God. Ganges 
therefore, is not to be worshipped ; because, so far 
from being a God, it is not better than other rivers. 
In speaking of the earth and moon, 'as a candle in 
the house, so is the sun,' I said, ' in the heavens.' 
But would I worship a candle in my hand ? These 
were nice points; I felt as if treading on tender 
ground, and was almost disposed to blame myself 
for imprudence. I thought, that amidst the silence 
these remarks produced, I heard hisses and groans : 
but a few Mohammedans applauded." 

The number of persons on these occasions, some- 
times amounted to eight hundred, composed of Mo- 
hammedans and Pagans. And though it was na- 
tural for them to be very respectful and attentive, 
in the supposition that their ill behaviour might 
cause Martyn to refuse them charity, yet it was 
evident that many were really interested in the new 
.doctrines he taught them. They sometimes made 
sensible remarks in assent to what he declared ; or 
kept entire silence, as if deeply thinking on it. 
They were very much moved, at one time, when, 
after detailing the history of God's judgment on 



128 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

Sodom, the preacher suddenly applied the subject 
to themselves — 

" Do you too," he said, " repent of your sins, 
and turn to God. For though you are not like 
the men of Sodom, — God forbid ! — you are never- 
theless sinners. Are there no thieves, railers, 
extortioners, among you ? Be you sure that God 
is angry. I say not that he will burn your town, 
but that he will burn you. Haste, therefore, out 
of Sodom. Sodom is the world, which is full 
of sinners and sin. Come out, therefore, from 
amongst them ; forsake not your worldly business, 
but your sinful companions. Do not be like the 
world, lest you perish with them. Do not, like 
Lot, linger; say not, to-morrow we will repent, 
lest you never see to-morrow ; repent to-day. 
Then, as Lot, seated on the hill, beheld the flames 
in safety, you also, sitting on the hills of heaven, 
shall behold the ruins of the world without fear." 

But his health beginning to suffer, from his la- 
bours and the heat of the climate, he was, with 
great reluctance, compelled to give up this portion 
of his services. He wrote to his friend, Mr. 
Simeon, •" I read your letter, of 6th of July, 1809, u 
cautioning me against over-exertion, with the con- 
fidence of one who had nothing to fear. This was 
only three weeks ago. Since the last Lord's day, 
your kind advice was brought home to my mind, 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 129 

accompanied with painful regret that I had not paid 
more attention to it. My work last Sunday was 
not more than usual, but far too much for me, I can 
perceive. First, service to his Majesty's fifty-third 
regiment, in the open air ; then at head-quarters ; 
in the afternoon, preached to eight hundred natives ; 
at night, to my little flock of Europeans. Which 
of these can I forego ? The ministration of the 
natives might be in the week : but I wish to attach 
the idea of holiness to the Sunday. My evening 
congregation, on Sunday, is attended by twice as 
many as in the week-day ; so how can I let this 
go?" 

He was assisted for some time by Mr. Corrie, 
from Calcutta, and once more attempted to address 
the beggars ; but his weakness, and other symp- 
toms of declining health, increased so much, that it 
became necessary for him to leave Gawnpore. At 
first, he determined to visit England for a short 
time, thinking that he could there best renew his 
strength; but he afterwards concluded to visit Per- 
sia and Arabia, that he might collect the opinions 
of the learned natives, respecting the accuracy of 
the translation of the New Testament into those 
tongues, the first of which was supposed to be 
written in a style not likely to be understood by 
the common people, and therefore not yet publish- 
ed, and the last being still unfinished. 



130 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

On the first of October, 1810, he left Cawnpore 
for this purpose, thus connecting the pursuit of 
health with his great missionary enterprise. As 
at Dinapore, he left this station just as a new 
church was completed, in which he had the hap- 
piness of preaching the first sermon, the day be- 
fore his departure. On his voyage down the 
Ganges to Aldeen, he visited the part of the army 
he had before served ; but most of those of whom 
he had cherished the strongest hopes, had neglect- 
ed his warnings, and were ashamed to see him. 
Nine only came to his boat, where he sang, pray- 
ed with, and exhorted them. At Aldeen and Cal- 
cutta, he enjoyed the society of his dear friends, 
the missionaries, and preached frequently, though 
exceedingly weak. One of his sermons was an ap- 
peal to the Europeans, on behalf of the nine hun- 
dred thousand natives of India, who possessed 
Christianity in some form, but were destitute of the 
Scriptures ; " many of them," as he said, " relaps- 
ing fast to idolatry, and already, indeed, little better 
than heathens." 

" Mention not their meanness ; it is yours to 
raise them from degradation. Despise not their 
inferiority, nor reproach them for their errors ; they 
cannot get a Bible to read. Had they been blessed 
with your advantages, they would have been, per- 
haps, more worthy of your respect. It has been 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN* 131 

said with too much truth, that they scarcely deserve 
the name of Christians. How is it possible that it 
should be otherwise, without the Bible, when it is 
considered how little oral instruction they receive." 
The sermon concluded with this address : 

"Imagine the sad situation of a sick or dying 
Christian, who has just heard enough of eternity 
to be afraid of death, and not enough of a Saviour 
to look beyond it with hope. He cannot call for a 
Bible to look for something.to support him, or ask 
his wife or child to read him a consolatory chapter. 
The Bible, alas ! is a treasure which they never 
had the happiness to possess. O pity their distress, 
you that have hearts to feel for the miseries of your 
fellow creatures ; you that have discernment to see, 
that a wounded spirit is far more agonizing than any 
earth-begotten woes ; you that know that you too 
must one day die, O give unto him what may com- 
fort him in a dying hour. The Lord, who loves 
our brethren, who gave his life for them and for 
you, who gave you the Bible before them, and now 
wills that they should receive it from you, he will 
reward you. They cannot recompense you, but 
you shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the 
just. The King himself will say to you, ' inas- 
much as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 

This sermon was printed in Calcutta, and con- 



132 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

tributed essentially to the institution of the Calcut- 
ta Bible Society, and the liberal support it received. 

His last discourse was in January 1811, from 
the words of our Saviour, " One thing is needful;" 
after which he left India, never more to return, 
though hoping to recover his health and spend the 
remainder of his life there. 

" I now pass," he wrote, " from India to Ara- 
bia, not knowing the things that shall befal me 
there, but assured that an ever-faithful God and Sa- 
viour will be with me in all places, whithersoever 
I go. May he guide me and protect me, and after 
prospering me in the thing whereunto I go, bring 
me back again to my delightful work in India. I 
am perhaps leaving it to see it no more ; but the 
will of God be done ; my times are in his hand r 
and he will cut them as short as shall be most for 
my good : and with this assurance, I feel that no- 
thing need interrupt my work or my peace." 

His passage from the mouth of the river Hoogley, 
on which Calcutta is situated, to Shiraz, the capi- 
tal of Persia, occupied five months. The particu- 
lars, which are worthy of notice, are given in his 
own words. 

"Bay of Bengal, January, 1811. 

"I took a passage in the ship Ahmoody, Cap- 
tain Kinsay, bound to Bombay. One of my fellow 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 133 

passengers was the Honourable Mr. Elphinstone, 
who was proceeding to take the Residency of 
Poonah. His agreeable manners and classical ac- 
quirements, made me think myself fortunate in- 
deed, in haying such a companion, and I found his 
company the most agreeable circumstance in my 
voyage. 

" Our captain was a pupil of Swartz,* of whom 
he communicated many interesting particulars. — 
Swartz, with KolhofT and Jcenicke, kept a school 
for half-caste children, about a mile and a half from 
Tanjore ; but went every night to the Tanjore 
church, to meet about sixty or seventy of the king's 
regiment, who assembled for devotional purposes : 
after which he officiated to their wives and children 
in Portuguese. At the school, Swartz used to read, 
in the morning, out of the German ' Meditation for 
every day in the year ;' at night, he had family 
prayer. Jcenicke taught geography ; Kolhof, writ- 
ing and arithmetic. They had also masters in 
Persian and Malabar. 

* "At the time when the present Rajah was in 
danger of his life, from the usurper of his uncle's 
throne, Swartz used to sleep in, the same room 
with him.. This was sufficient protection, ' for 
(said the captain,) Swartz was considered by the 

* The life of this missionary has been published by the 
American Sunday School Union. 

M 



134 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

natives as something more than mortal.' The old 
Rajah, at his death, committed his nephew to 
Swartz." 

" Jan. 21th to 31.— Generally unwell. In pray- 
er, my views of my Saviour have been inexpressi- 
bly consolatory. How glorious the privilege that we 
exist but in him ; without him I lose the principle 
of life, and am left to the power of native corrup- 
tion, — a rotten branch, a dead thing, that none can 
make use of. This mass of corruption, when it 
meets the Lord, changes its nature, and lives 
throughout, and is regarded by God as a member 
of Christ's body. This is my bliss, that Christ is 
all. Upheld by him, I smile at death. It is no 
longer a question about my own worthiness. I 
glory in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

"Feb. ISth. — Anchored at Bombay. — This day 
I finished the thirtieth year of my unprofitable life ; 
the age at which David Brainerd finished his 
course. I am now at the age at which the Saviour 
of men began his ministry, and at which John the 
Baptist called a nation to repentance. Let me now 
think for myself, and act with energy. Hitherto 
I have made my youth and insignificance an excuse 
for sloth and imbecility : now let me have a cha- 
racter, and act boldly for God." 

" Feb. 24th. — Preached at the Bombay church." 
" March 25th. — Embarked on board the Be- 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 135 

nares, Captain Sealy ; who, in company with the 
Prince of Wales, Captain Hepburn, was ordered to 
cruise in the Persian Gulf, against the Arab pirates. 
We got under way immediately, and were outside 
the land before night." 

" March 31. — The European part of the ship's 
crew, consisting of forty-five sailors and twelve ar- 
tillerymen, were assembled on the quarter-deck to 
hear divine service. I wondered to see so many 
of the seamen inattentive ; but I afterwards- found 
that most of them were foreigners, French, Span- 
ish, Portuguese, &c. We had prayers in the cabin 
every night. In the afternoon I used to read to a 
sick man below, and two or three others would 
come to hear."^ 

" April 21. — Anchored at Muscat, in Arabia." 

" May 22.— Landed at Bushire." 

" On 30th of May, our Persian dresses were 
ready, and we set out for Shiraz. The Persian dress 
consists of, first, stockings and shoes in one ; next, 
a pair of large blue trowsers, or else a pair of huge 
red boots ; then the shirt, then the tunic, and above 
it the coat, both of chintz, and a great coat. I have 
here described my own dress, most of which I 
have on at this moment. On the head is worn an 
enormous cone, made of the skin of the black Tar- 
tar sheep, with the wool on. If to this description 
of my dress, I add, that my beard and mustachios 



136 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

have been suffered to grow undisturbed ever since 
I left India, that I am sitting on a Persian carpet, 
in a room without tables or chairs, and that I bury 
my hand in the dish, without waiting for spoon or 
plate, you will give me credit for being already an 
accomplished oriental." 

" At sunrise we came to our ground at Ahmedee, 
and pitched our little tent under a tree ; it was the 
only shelter we could get. At first the heat was 
not greater than we had felt in India, but it soon 
became so intense as to be quite alarming. When 
the thermometer was above 112°, fever heat, I be- 
gan to lose my strength fast ; at last, it became 
quite intolerable. I wrapped myself up iii a blanket, 
and all the warm covering I could get, to defend 
myself from the external air ; by which means the 
moisture was kept a little longer upon the body, and 
not so speedily evaporated as when the skin was 
exposed : one of my companions followed my ex- 
ample, and found the benefit of it. But the ther- 
mometer still rising, and the moisture of the body 
being quite exhausted, I grew restless, and thought 
I should have lost my senses. The thermometer 
at last stood at 126° ; in this state I composed my- 
self, and concluded that though I might hold out a 

day or two, death was inevitable. Captain -, 

who sat it out, continued to tell the hour and height 
of the thermometer : and with what pleasure did 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 137 

we hear of its sinking to 120°, 118°, &c. At last 
the fierce sun retired, and I crept out, more dead 
than alive. It was then a difficulty how I could 
proceed on my journey ; for besides the immediate 
effects of the heat, I had no opportunity of making 
up for the last night's want of sleep, and had eaten 
nothing. However, while they were loading the 
mules I got an hour's sleep, and set out, the mule- 
teer leading my horse, and Zachariah, my servant, 
an Armenian, of Isfahan, doing all in his power to 
encourage me. The cool air of the night restored 
me wonderfully, so that I arrived at our next stop- 
ping place, with no other derangement than that 
occasioned by want of sleep. Expecting another 
such day as the former, we began to make prepara- 
tion the instant we arrived on the ground. I got a 
shelter made of the branches of the date tree, and 
a Persian peasant to water it ; by this means the 
thermometer did not rise higher than 114°. But 
what completely secured me from the heat,^was a 
large wet towel, which I wrapped round my head 
and body, muffling up the lower part in clothes. 
How could I but be grateful to a gracious Provi- 
dence, for giving me so simple a defence against 
what, I am persuaded, would have destroyed my 
life th&t day. We took care not to go without 
nourishment, as we had done ; the neighbouring 
village supplied us with curds and milk. At sunset, 
m 2 



138 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

rising up to go out, a scorpion fell upon my clothes ; 
not seeing where it fell, I did not know what it 

was ; but Captain pointing it 6ut, gave the 

alarm, and I struck it off, and he killed it. The 
night before, we found a black scorpion in our tent ; 
this made us rather uneasy ; so that, although we 
did not start till midnight, we got no sleep, fearing 
we might be visited by another scorpion. 

" The next morning we arrived at the foot of the 
mountains. A strong suffocating smell of naphtha,* 
announced something more than ordinarily foul in 
the neighbourhood. We saw a river ; what flowed 
in it, it seemed difficult to say, whether it was wa- 
ter, or green oil ' r it scarcely moved, and the stones 
which it laved, it left of a greyish colour, as if its 
foul touch had given them the leprosy. Our place 
of encampment this day was a grove of date trees. 
I threw myself down on the burning ground, and 
slept : when the tent came up, I awoke, as usual, 
in a burning fever. All this day, I had recourse to 
a wet towel, which kept me alive, but would allow 
of no sleep. It was a sorrowful sabbath ; but Cap- 
tain read a few hymns, in which I found great 

consolation. At nine in the evening we decamped. 
The ground and air were so insufferably hot, that 
I could not travel without a wet towel round my 

* A substance like liquid pitch, supposed to be produced by 
subterranean fire. . f 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 139 

face and neck. This night, for the first time, we 
began to ascend the mountains. The road often 
passed so close to the edge of the tremendous pre- 
cipices, that one false step of the horse would have 
plunged his rider into inevitable destruction. In 
such circumstances, I found it useless to attempt 
guiding the animal, and therefore gave him the rein. 
These poor animals are so used to journeys of this 
sort, that they generally step sure. There was 
nothing to mark the road, but the rocks being a 
little more worn in one place than in another. 
Sometimes my horse, which led the way, as being 
the muleteer's, stopped, as if to consider about the 
way : for myself, I could not guess, at such times, 
where the road lay ; but he always found it. The 
sublime scenery would have impressed me much, 
in other circumstances : but my sleepiness and fa- 
tigue rendered me insensible to every thing around 
me. At last we emerged, not on the top of a moun- 
tain, to go down again, — but to a plain, or upper 
world." 

" We rode briskly over the plain, breathing a 
purer air, and soon came in sight of a fair edifice, 
built by the king of the country for the refreshment 
of pilgrims. In this caravansera we took up our 
abode for the day. It was more calculated for 
eastern, than European travellers, having no means 
of keeping out the air and light. We found the 



140 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

thermometer at 110°. At the passes we met a man 
travelling down to Bushire, with a load of ice, 
which he willingly disposed of to us. The next 
night we ascended another range of mountains, 
and passed over a plain, where the cold was so 
piercing, that with all the clothes we could muster, 
we were shivering. At the end of this plain, we 
entered a dark valley, contained by two ranges of 
hills, approaching one another. The muleteer gave 
notice that he saw robbers. It proved to be a false 
alarm ; but the place was fitted to be a retreat for 
robbers ; there being on each side caves and fast- 
nesses from which they might have killed every 
man of us. After ascending another mountain, we 
descended by a very long and circuitous route into 
an extensive valley, where we were exposed to the 
sun till eight o'clock. Whether from the sun, or 
from continued want of sleep, I could not, on my 
arrival at Carzeroon, compose myself to sleep ; 
there seemed to be a fire within my head, my skin 
like a cinder, and the pulse violent. Through the- 
day it was again too hot to sleep, though the place 
we occupied was a sort of summer-house, in a gar- 
den of cypress-trees, exceedingly well fitted up 
with mats and coloured glass. Had the caravan 
gone on that night, I could not have accompanied 
it ; but it halted here a day, by which means I got 
a sort of night's rest, though I woke twenty times 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 141 

to dip my burning hands in water. Though Car- 
zeroon is the second greatest town in Fars, we 
could get nothing but bread, milk, and eggs, and 
those with difficulty." 

" June 1th. — The hours we were permitted to 
rest, the musquitoes had effectually prevented me 
from using ; so that I never felt more miserable 
and disordered ; the cold was very severe ; for fear 
of falling off, from sleep and numbness, I walked a 
good part of the way. We pitched our tent in the 
vale of Dustarjan, near a crystal stream ; the 
whole valley was one green field, in which large 
herds of cattle were browsing. The temperature 
was about that of spring in England. Here a few 
hours sleep recovered me, in some degree, from 
the stupidity in which I had been for some days. 
I awoke with a light heart, and said, ' He knoweth 
our frame, and remembereth we are dust. He re- 
deemeth our life from destruction, and crowneth 
us with loving kindness and tender mercies. He 
maketh us to lie down on the green pastures, and 
leadeth us beside the still waters. And when we 
have left this vale of tears, there is no more sorrow, 
nor sighing, nor any more pain. The sun shall 
not light upon thee, nor any heat ; but the Lamb 
shall lead thee to living fountains of waters.' 

" June 8th. — Went on to a caravansera, where 
we passed the day. At night set out upon our last 



142 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

march for Shiraz. Sleepiness, my old companion 
and enemy, again overtook me. I was in perpetual 
danger of falling off my horse, till at last I pushed 
on to a considerable distance, planted my back 
against a wall, and slept, I know not how long, till 
the good muleteer came up, and gently waked me." 



CHAPTER X. 

He arrived the next morning at Shiraz, the capi- 
tal of the Persian empire. His first object was to 
ascertain from those best skilled in the language, 
how well Sabat's Persian translation would be un- 
derstood by the people. Finding that their opinion 
was against it, he, in a little more than a week af- 
ter his arrival, undertook the task anew, with the 
assistance of Mirza Seid Ali Khan, who belonged 
.to the sect called Soofees. Whilst engaged in this 
work, he was visited constantly by learned Per- 
sians, who argued with him respecting the Christian 
religion and Mohammedism. But their prejudices 
in favour of their sensual creed were too strong to 
yield to mere arguments. Some of them were Jews 
who had become Mussulmans; a very frequent 
change, as every such convert is rewarded with a 
new dress, by the prince. — The condition of these 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 143 

wandering descendants of Abraham, greatly excited 
his sympathy. On one occasion " while walking 
in the garden, in some disorder from vexation, two 
Mussulman Jews came up, and asked me what 
would become of them in another world ? the Mo- 
hammedans were right in their way, they supposed, 
and we in ours ; but what must they expect ? After 
rectifying their mistake as to the Mohammedans, I 
mentioned two or three reasons for believing that 
we are right : such as their dispersion, and the ces- 
sation of sacrifices, immediately on the appearance 
of Jesus. * True, true,' they said, with great feeling 
and seriousness ; indeed, they seemed disposed to 
yield assent to any thing I said. They confessed 
they had become Mohammedans only on compul- 
sion; and that Abdoolghunee wished to go to Bag- 
dad, thinking he might throw off the mask there with 
safety ;— but asked, what I thought ? I said that 
the governor was a Mohammedan. ' Did I think Sy- 
ria safer ?' ' The safest place in the east,' I said, 
' was India.' Feelings of pity for God's ancient 
people, and having the awful importance of eternal 
things impressed on my mind, by the seriousness 
of their inquiries as to what would become of them, 
relieved me from the pressure of my comparatively 
insignificant distresses. I, a poor Gentile, blest, 
honoured, and loved* secured for ever by the ever- 
lasting covenant, whilst the children of the king- 



144 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

dom are still lying in outward darkness ! Well 
does it become me to be thankful." 

Mr. Martyn did not discourage the love of dispu- 
tation manifested by the natives, hoping it might 
open the way for impressing the truth, and finding 
that his assistant had already become interested in 
the gospel history. But in consequence of his re- 
moving from the city to the suburbs, that he might 
enjoy a pleasant garden and a purer air, he was not 
so much in the way of interruption, and his visiters 
became less numerous. In that retirement, by the 
side of a clear stream, and amidsi; vines and orange 
trees,, he devoted himself constantly to the com- 
pletion of his important task. 

The curiosity and interest with which the mis- 
sionary was regarded, was not confined to a few 
private individuals of Shiraz. The Professor of 
Mohammedan law agreed to hold a public dispute 
with him, and we abridge the account of the meet- 
ing as given by Mr. Martyn, that our readers may 
have an idea of the kind of arguments used in fa- 
vour of the imposture of Mohammed, and against 
the truth of the gospel. 

" He talked for a full hour about the soul : its be- 
ing distinct from the body, superior to the brutes, 
&c. ; about God, his unity, invisibility, and other ob- 
vious and acknowledged truths. After this follow- 
ed another discourse. At length, after clearing his 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTIN. 145 

way for miles around, lie said, ' that philosophers 
had proved, that a single being could produce but 
a single being ; that the first thing God had created 
was Wisdom, — a being perfectly one with him ; af- 
ter that, the souls of men, and the seventh heaven ; 
and so on, till he produced matter, which is merely 
passive.' He illustrated the theory, by comparing 
nil being to a circle : at one extremity of the diame- 
ter is God, at the opposite extremity of the diame- 
ter is matter, than which, nothing in the world is 
meaner. Rising from thence, the highest stage of 
matter is connected with the lowest stage of vege- 
tation ; the highest of the vegetable world, with 
the lowest of the animal, and so on, till we ap- 
proach the point from which all proceeded, ' But, 5 
said he, ' you will observe, that next to God, some- 
thing ought to be, which is equal to God ; for since 
it is equally near, it possesses equal dignity. What 
this is, philosophers are not agreed upon. You,' 
said he, * say it is Christ : but we, that it is the 
Spirit of the Prophets. All this is what the phi- 
losophers have proved, independently of any par- 
ticular religion.' There were a hundred things in 
the Professor's harangue, that might have been 
excepted against, as mere dreams, supported by no 
evidence ; but I had no inclination to call in ques- 
tion dogmas, on the truth or falsehood of which f 
nothing in religion depended, 
N 



146 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

" The Professor, at the close of one of his long 
speeches, said to me, ' You see how much there is 
to be said on these subjects; several visits will be 
necessary ; we must come to the point by degrees.' 
Perceiving how much he dreaded' a close discus- 
sion, I did not mean to hurry him, but let him talk 
on, not expecting we should have any thing about 
Mohammedism the first night. But at the instiga- 
tion of the Jew, I said, ' Sir, you see that Abdool- 
ghunee is anxious that you should say something 
about Islam.'* He was much displeased at being 
brought so prematurely to the weak point, but 
could not decline accepting so direct a challenge. 
' Well,' said he to me, ' I must ask you a few 
questions. Why do you believe in Christ?' — He 
then enumerated the persons who had spoken of the 
miracles of Mohammed, and told a long story about 
Salmon, the Persian, who had come to Mohammed. 
I asked, ' whether this Salmon had written an ac- 
count of the miracles he had seen V He confessed 
that he had not. 6 Nor,' said I, ' have you a single 
witness to the miracles of Mohammed.' He then 
tried to show, that though they had not, there was 
still sufficient evidence. ' For,' said he, 'suppose 
five hundred persons should say that they heard 
some particular thing of a hundred persons who 

* Another name for Mohammedism, signifying the slate of sal- 
vation 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 147 

were with Mohammed,— would that be sufficient 
evidence, or not V ' Whether it be or not,' said I, 
6 you have no such evidence as that, nor any thing 
like it ; but if you have, as they are something like 
witnesses, we must proceed to examine them, and 
see whether their testimony deserves credit.' 

44 After this, the Koran was mentioned; but as 
the company began to thin, and the great man had 
not a sufficient audience before whom to- display 
his eloquence, the dispute was not so brisk. He 
did not, indeed, seem to think it worth while to 
notice my objections. He mentioned a well known 
sentence in the Koran, as being inimitable. I pro- 
duced another sentence, and begged to know why 
it was inferior to the Koranic one. He declined 
saying why, under pretext that it required such 
a knowledge of rhetoric, in order to understand 
his proofs, as I probably did not possess. A 
scholar afterwards came to Seid AH, with twenty 
reasons for preferring Mohammed's sentence to 
mine." 

" It was midnight when dinner, or rather supper, 
was brought in : it was a sullen meal. The great 
man was silent, and I was sleepy. Seid Ali, how- 
ever, had not had enough. While burying his 
hand in the dish of the professor, he softly men* 
tioned some more of my objections. He was so 
vexed, that he scarcely answered any thing ; but 



148 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

after, supper, told a very long story, all reflecting 
upon me." 

His account of a subsequent appearance before a 
celebrated Soofie, will further exemplify the cha- 
racter of the learned men of India, who persist in 
rejecting the truth. 

" In the evening we went to pay a long-promised 
visit to Mirza Abulcasim, one of the most re- 
nowned Soofies in all Persia. We found several 
persons sitting in an open court, in which a few 
greens and flowers were placed ; the master was in 
a corner. He was a very fresh-looking old man, 
with a silver beard. I was surprised to observe 
the downcast and sorrowful looks of the assembly, 
and still more at the silence which reigned. After 
sitting some time in expectation, and being not at 
all disposed to waste my time in sitting there, I 
said softly to Seid Ali, ' What is this V He said, 
4 It is the custom here, to think much, and speak 
little.' 'May I ask the master a question V said 
I. With some hesitation he consented to let me : 
so I begged JafTier Ali to inquire, > Which is the 
way to be happy ?' 

" This he did in his own manner : he began by 
observing, that ' there was a great deal of misery in 
the world, and that the learned shared as largely 
in it as the rest ; that I wished, therefore, to know 
what we must do to escape it.' The master re- 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 149 

plied, that * for his part, he did not know, but that 
it was usually said that the subjugation of the pas- 
sions was the shortest way to happiness.' 

" After a considerable pause, I ventured to ask, 
' what were his feelings in the prospect of death ; 
hope, or fear ; or neither V ' Neither,' said he ; 
and that ' pleasure and pain were both alike.' I 
asked, ' whether he had attained this apathy V He 
said, * No.' ' Why do you think it attainable ?' He 
could not tell. ' Why do you think that pleasure 
and pain are not the same V said Seid Ali, taking 
his master's part. ' Because,' said I, ' I have the 
evidence of my senses for it. And you also act as 
if there was a difference. Why do you eat, but that 
you fear pain V These silent sages sat unmoved." 

A defence of the religion of the Koran was also 
published in Arabic, by the principal theological 
professor, or instructor of Mohammedan priests, 
upon which much labour had been spent, and 
which was pronounced to be the best work on 
the subject that had ever appeared. The work 
concluded with an appeal to Mr. Martyn, to con- 
sider the subject, and confess the truth of Moham- 
medism. He immediately wrote a reply to it in 
Persian, exposing the heresy and evil of the false 
faith, and showing the evidences of the Christian re- 
ligion ; appealing, in turn, to the Mussulman author 
to view the subject impartially, and to embrace the 
n2 



150 LIFE OF HENRY MARTIN. 

truth without fear of the contempt, or even death it 
might cost him. The learned men of the sect were 
very fond of arguing with Mr. Martyn on the sub- 
ject ; but as their desire was not humbly to seek 
the way of God, but to indulge their love of debate, 
and to display their skill in it, there was little good 
effected by their conversations. The nephew of 
the prince said, in the true spirit of Mohammed, 
that the proper answer to the missionary was the 
sword ; but the prince himself acknowledged that 
his faith in the false prophet was shaken, and 
greatly praised the reply of Mr. Martyn, who, 
when he was asked by the prince, what were the 
laws of Christianity, (meaning how often it requir- 
ed its believers to pray, wash, &c.,) said, that it had 
two commandments — "Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God, with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all 
thy strength; and thy neighbour, as thyself." In 
these debates he had to endure great contempt from 
his opponents, which is one of the severest trials 
a man of honourable feeling, and a minister of the 
gospel, can be called to suffer. It must have been 
a great aggravation of the sorrows of our Redeemer, 
after he had come from Heaven, out of pure mercy to 
men, to find himself disbelieved, and his affectionate 
entreaties, and the proofs of his doctrine, treated 
with ridicule and scorn, by the very persons he 
had come to seek and to save. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 151 

It was the recollection of what Christ had suf- 
fered in this respect, that supported Mr. Martyn 
amidst the scoffs of the proud Mohammedans ; and 
he often repeated the verse, 

" If on my face, for thy dear name, 
Shame and reproaches be ; 
All hail reproach, and welcome shame, 
Tf thou remember me." 

Although these men pass for sages amongst their 
own people, they were very ignorant, in compari- 
son with well-educated Europeans. One of the 
sectaries, for instance, maintained against Mr. 
Martyn, that there was no difference between 
pleasure and pain ; and he was once called upon 
in a large company, assembled at the house of the 
prime minister of the territory, to prove that the 
earth moves : but no one understood his expla- 
nations. Sometimes he would be questioned on 
great principles which naturally led him to speak 
of the gospel ; but as soon as he mentioned any of 
its doctrines, they would divert the conversation 
to some of the ridiculous ideas, upon which they 
were accustomed to waste their thoughts. For 
instance, one of the men who accompanied him 
as a guard to visit the ruins of Persepolis, a cele- 
brated ancient city, not far from Shiraz, " often 
broke a long silence," he says, "by a sudden ques- 
tion of this sort : ' Sir, what is the chief good of 
life V I replied, ' The love of God :' < What 



152 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

next?' ' The love of man.' ' That is,' said he, ' to 
have men love us, or to love them ?' ' To love 
them.' He did not seem to agree with me. Another 
time he asked, ' Who were the worst people in the 
world ?' I said, 4 Those who know their duty, 
and do not practise it.' At the house where I was 
entertained, they asked me the question which the 
Lord once asked, 'What think ye of Christ?' I 
generally tell them at first, what they expect to 
hear, 'The Son of God;' but this time I said, 
* The same as you say, — the word of God.' ' Was 
he a Prophet ?' ' Yes, in some sense, he was a 
Prophet ; but, what it chiefly concerns us to know, 
he was an Atonement for the sins of men.' Not 
understanding this, they made no reply. They 
next asked, ' What did I think of the soul ? was it 
out of the body or in the body V I supposed the 
latter. ' No,' they said, ' it was neither the one 
nor the other ; but next to it, and the mover of the 
body.' " 

We have some other specimens of these discus- 
sions. 

" Aga Ali, of Media, came, and 'with him and 
Mirza Ali, I had a long and warm discussion about 
the essentials of Christianity. The Mede seeing 
us at work upon the epistles, said, ' he should be 
glad to read them ; as for the gospels, they were 
nothing but tales, which were of no use to him ; 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 153 

for instance,' said he, ' if Christ raised four hundred 
dead to life, what is that to me V I said, ' It cer- 
tainly was of importance ; for his works were a 
reason for our depending upon his words.' 4 What 
did he say,' asked he, ' that was not known before : 
the love of God, humility, — who does not know 
these things ?' ' Were these things,' said I, ' known 
before Christ, either among Greeks or Romans, 
with all their philosophy?' They averred that 
the Hindoo book Juh contained precepts of this 
kind. I questioned its antiquity ;. ' but however 
that may be,' I added, « Christ came not to teach, 
so much as to die ; the truths I spoke of, as con- 
firmed by his miracles, were those relating to his 
person, such as, * Come unto me, all ye that labour 
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' 
Here Mirza Seid Ali told him that I had professed 
to have no doubt of my salvation. He asked what 
I meant? I told him, ' that though sin still re- 
mained, I was assured that it should not regain 
dominion ; and that I should never come into con- 
demnation, but was accepted in the beloved.' Not 
a little surprised, he asked Mirza Seid Ali whether 
he comprehended this ? ' No,' said he, ' nor Mirza 
Ibraheem, to whom I mentioned it.' The Mede 
again turning to me, asked, 'how do you know 
this ? how do you know you have experienced the 
second birth ?' ' Because,' said I, « we have the 



154 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

Spirit of the Father ; what he wishes, we wish ; 
what he hates, we hate.' Here he began to be a 
little more calm and less contentious, and mildly 
asked, how I had obtained this peace of mind ; 
1 Was it merely those books V said he, taking up 
some of our sheets. I told him ' These books, 
with prayer.' ' What was the beginning of it,' said 
he, ' the society of some friends ?' I related to him 
my religious history, the substance of which was, 
that I took my bible before God, in prayer, and 
prayed for forgiveness through Christ, assurance 
of it through his Spirit, and grace to obey his com- 
mandments. They then both asked whether the 
same benefit would be conferred on them? I re- 
plied ; ' I bring you this message from God, that 
he who, despairing of himself, rests for righteous- 
ness on the Son of God, shall receive the gift of the 
Holy Ghost ; and to this I can add my testimony, 
if that be worth any thing, that I have found the 
promise fulfilled in myself ; but if you should not 
find it so in you, accuse not the gospel of falsehood ; 
it is possible that your faith might not be sincere ; 
indeed, so fully am I persuaded that you do not 
believe on the Son of God, that if you were to 
entreat ever so earnestly for baptism, I should not 
dare to administer it at this time, when you have 
shown so many signs of an unhumbled heart.' 
* What! would you have me believe,' said he, 'as 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 155 

a child V ' Yes,' said I. < True,' said he, < I think 
that is the only way.' Aga Ali said no more but 
i Certainly he is a good man !' " 

" Aga Neeser came, and talked most captiously 
and irrelevantly against all revealed religion. Three 
years ago, he had thrown off the shackles of Mo- 
hammed, and advised me to do the same with my 
yoke. I told him, that I preferred my yoke to his 
freedom. He was for sending me naked into a 
wilderness ; but I would rather be a child under 
: the restraints of a parent, who would provide me 
with food and clothing, and be my protector and 
guide. To every thing I said, he had but one 
answer. ' God is the sole agent ; sin and holiness, 
happiness and misery, cause and effect, are all per- 
fectly one.' Finding him determined to amuse 
himself in this way, I said, ' These things will do 
very well for the present, while reclining in gardens 
and smoking pipes ; but not for a dying hour. How 
many years of life remain 1 You are about thirty, 
perhaps thirty more remain. How swiftly have 
the last thirty passed: how soon will the next 
thirty be gone : and then we shall see. If you are 
right, I lose nothing ; if I am right, you lose your 
soul. Leaving out the consideration of all religion, 
t is probable that the next world may be akin to 
his, and our relation to both not dissimilar. But 
Here we see that childhood is a preparation for 



156 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

manhood, and that neglect of the proper employ- 
ments of childhood entails miseries in riper years.' 
The thought of death, and of separation from 
his pleasures, made him serious ; or perhaps he 
thought it useless to press me with any more of his 
opinions." 

Such was the state of the minds of the people, 
whom he hoped to bring to a reception of the 
gospel, to renounce Mohammed, and " confess that 
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father !" We may learn more of the nature of 
their religion, by his account of the manner in 
which their principal fast is observed. It is called 
the fast of Ramazan, and is directed by the Koran 
to be kept during the month called by that name. 

" Sept. 20th. — First day of the fast of Ramazan. 
All the family had been up in the night, to take an 
unseasonable meal, in order to fortify themselves 
for the abstinence of the day. It was curious to 
observe the effects of the fast in the house. The 
master was scolding and beating his servants ; they 
equally peevish and insolent ; and the beggars more 
than ordinarily importunate and clamorous. At 
noon, all the city went to the grand mosque.* My 
host came back with an account of new vexations 
there. He was chatting with a friend, near the 
door, when a great preacher, Hagi Mirza, arrived, 
* The place of Mohammedan worship. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 157 

with hundreds of followers. ' Why do you not 
say your prayers?' said the new comers to the 
twofriends. « We have finished,' said they. ' Well,' 
said the other^ < if you cannot pray a second time 
with us, you had better move out of the way.' 
Rather than join such turbulent zealots, they re- 
tired. The reason of this unceremonious address 
was, that these loving disciples had a desire to pray 
all in a row with their master, which, it seems, is 
the custom. There is no public service in the 
mosque ; every man there prays for himself." 

" Sept. 22d. — Sunday. My friends returned 
from the mosque, full of indignation at what they 
had witnessed there. The former governor of 
Bushire complained to the vizier, in the mosque, 
that some of his servants had treated him brutally. 
The vizier, instead of attending to his complaint, 
ordered them to do their work a second time ; 
which they did, kicking and beatmg him with 
their slippers, in the most ignominious way, before 
all the mosque. This unhappy people groan 
under the tyranny of their governors ; yet nothing 
subdues or tames them. Happy Europe ! how 
has God favoured the sons of Japheth, by causing 
them to embrace the gospel ! How dignified are 
all the nations of Europe compared with this 
nation ! Yet the people are clever and intelligent, 
and more calculated to become great and powerful 
O 



158 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN, 

than any of the nations of the east, had they a good 
government, and the Christian religion." 

" Oct. 1st. — Thousands every day assemble at 
the mosque ; it is quite a lounge with them. Each, 
as soon as he has said his prayers, sits down and 
talks to his friend. The multitude press to hear 
Hagi Mohammed Hasan. One day they thronged 
him so much that he made some error in his pros- 
trations. This put him into such a passion, that 
he wished that Omar's* curse might come upon 
him, if he preached to them again. However, a 
day or two after, he thought better of it. This 
preacher is famous for letting out his money for 
interest ; and therefore, in spite of his eloquence, 
he is not very popular." 

" Oct. 7th. — I was surprised by a visit from the 
great Soofie doctor, who, while most of the people 
were asleep, came to me for some wine. I plied 
him with questions innumerable ; but he returned 
nothing but incoherent answers, and sometimes no 
answer at all. Having laid aside his turban, he 
put on his night-cap, and soon fell asleep upon the 
carpet Whilst he lay there, his disciples came, 
but would not believe, when I told them who was 
there, till they came and saw the sage asleep. 
When he awoke, they came in, and seated them- 

* Omar was the second of the Caliphs, or successors of Mo- 
hammed. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 15$ 

selves at the greatest possible distance, and were 
all as still as if in a church. 

" The real state of this man seems to be despair, 
and it is well if it do not end in madness. I 
preached to him the kingdom of God : mentioning 
particularly how I had found peace from the Son 
of God and the Spirit of God : through the first, 
forgiveness ; through the second, sanctification. 
He said it was good, but said it with the same 
unconcern with which he admits all manner of 
things, however contradictory. Poor soul! he is 
sadly bewildered. 

" At a garden called Shah Chiragh, in which is 
the tomb of the brother of one of the Imans, who 
was killed on the spot, a miracle is wrought every 
Ramazan. The proprietor of the garden, in whose 
family it has been for ages, finds its supposed 
sanctity abundantly profitable, as he is said to 
make $9,000 a year of it. To keep alive the zeal 
of the people, who make their offerings there every 
day, he procures a villager, who pretends to be 
sick, and crying to Ali* for Tielp ; and then, on the 
appointed day, recovers. Though this farce is 
played off every year, the simpletons are never 
undeceived. Presents of sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, 
money, flowed in upon the proprietor, who skil- 
fully turned all to the best advantage. Those who 
* A cousin of Mohammed, and head of a religious sect, 



160 LIFE Ofc HENRY MARTYN. 

wished to see the man's face, were to pay so much ; 
those who were anxious to touch him, were to pay 
so much more ; and so on. 

** On two days in the Ramazan, tragedies were 
acted at our house, in the women's court. Two 
or three men, dressed in the Khan's court-robes, 
spouted and sung for an hour, before an immense 
concourse of women, all veiled. The subject on 
the first day was the death of Mohammed ; on the 
second, that of Iman Hosyn." 

" Oct. 18th. — " The Ramazan ended, or ought 
to have ended, but the moon disappointed them. 
The Moollahs not having seen the new moon, 
would not allow the fast to be over, and the people 
were, in consequence, all in confusion ; for not 
having eaten in the night, they were not at all 
disposed to go through the day fasting. At last 
some witnesses appeared, who vowed that they had 
seen the silver bow. These were from the prince ; 
but the Moollahs refused to admit them till seventy- 
two of the same kind bore the same testimony. 
This was no great number for a prince to produce ; 
so the seventy-two appeared, and the feast was 
proclaimed." 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 161 



CHAPTER XL 

The Persian version of the New Testament 
being now nearly finished, Mr. Marty n, with his 
native assistant, commenced the translation of the 
Psalms of David into Persian, from the Hebrew. 
From his diary in the beginning of 1812, it appears 
that he was not satisfied with his Persian New 
Testament. 

" The last has been, in some respects, a memora- 
ble year. I have been led, by what I have reason 
to consider as the particular providence of God, to 
this place, and have undertaken an important work, 
which has gone on without material interruption, 
and is now nearly finished. I like to find myself 
employed usefully, in a way I did not expect or 
foresee, especially if my own will is in any degree 
crossed by the work unexpectedly assigned me ; 
as there is then reason to believe that God is act- 
ing. The present year will probably be a perilous 
one ; but my life is of little consequence, whether 
I live to finish the Persian New Testament, or do 
not. I look back with pity and shame upon my 
former self, and on the importance I then attached 
to my life and labours. The more I see of my 
own works, the more I am ashamed of them. 
Coarseness and clumsiness mar all the works of 

n 2 



162 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

man. I am sick when I look at man, and his 
wisdom, and his doings ; and am relieved only by- 
reflecting, that we have a city whose builder and 
maker is God. The least of His works it is 
refreshing to look at. A dried leaf, or a straw, 
makes me feel myself in good company : compla- 
cency and admiration take place of disgust. 

" I compared, with pain, our Persian translation 
with the original ; to say nothing of the precision 
and elegance of the sacred text, its perspicuity 
is that which sets at defiance all attempts to equal 
it." 

But the more he read and studied the sacred scrip- 
tures, the stronger attachment he felt towards them, 
and so far from becoming tired of them, from hav- 
ing them so constantly in his hands, he used to 
turn to them for comfort in all his sorrows. 

" Feb. 2d.— -From what I suffer in this city, I 
can understand the feelings of Lot. The face of 
the poor Russian appears to me like the face of an 
angel, because he does not tell lies. Heaven will 
be heaven, because there will not be one liar there. 
The word of God is more precious to me at this 
time than I ever remember it to have been ; and 
of all the promises in it, none is more sweet to me 
than this — ' He shall reign till he hath put all ene- 
mies under his feet.' " 

" Feb. 3d. — A packet arrived from India, without 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 163 

a single letter for me. It was some disappoint- 
ment to me ; but let me be satisfied with my God ; 
and if I cannot have the comfort of hearing from 
my friends, let me return with thankfulness to his 
word, which is a treasure of which none envy me 
the possession, and where I can find what will 
more than compensate for the loss of earthly enjoy- 
ments. Resignation to the will of God is a lesson 
which I must learn, and which I trust he is teach- 
ing me." 

In the earlier part of his life he felt a great in- 
crease of spiritual feeling and enjoyment, in conse- 
quence of having for a time scarcely any other 
book to read than the Bible. i 

Mr. Martyn was sometimes encouraged to be- 
lieve that the constant perusal of the scriptures had 
made a serious impression on the mind of Mirza 
Seid Ali, his assistant in translation. He was evi- 
dently interested in his employment, and even went 
so far as to acknowledge his belief in Christ, as the 
Son of God, and to express his willingness to trust 
in him for salvation, and make a public profession 
of his faith. But his conduct at other times mani- 
fested, that he had only a belief in these truths as 
facts, and that he did not really submit himself to God 
by faith and repentance. His candour was evinced 
in a confession which he made, on a point in which 
the natural disposition of his countrymen inclines 



164 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

them to be very perverse. He had been boasting 
of the humility and simplicity of his sect, the 
Soofies ; upon which Mr. Martyn remarked, that if 
he was really humble, he would not dispute so 
boldly as he did, but would be like a child. Upon 
hearing this he did not speak, except to acknow- 
ledge, " True, I have no humility ;" and afterwards 
quite distressed to say, " The truth is, we are in a 
state of compound ignorance ; ignorant, yet igno- 
rant of our ignorance." When their translation 
was finished, Mr. Martyn remarked, " Mirza Seid 
Ali never now argues against the truth, nor makes 
any remarks but of a serious kind. He speaks of 
his dislike to some of the Soofies, on account of 
their falsehood and drunken habits. This approach 
to the love of morality, is the best sign of a change 
for the better, which I have yet seen in him. As 
often as he produces the New Testament, which 
he always does when any of his friends come, his 
brother and cousin ridicule him ; but he tells them 
that, supposing no other benefit to have been de- 
rived, it is certainly something better to have 
gained all this information about the religion of 
Christians, than to have loitered away the year in 
the garden." 

The Persian New Testament was completed in 
February, 1812, and the Psalms in March ; and on 
the 24th May, Mr. Martyn left Shiraz, in company 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 165 

with an English clergyman, for the purpose of pre- 
senting a written copy of the Testament to the 
king of Persia, who was encamped between Shiraz 
and Tebriz. Before he left Shiraz, he maintained 
the doctrine that Christ was God and the Creator, 
before a large company of Moollahs, in the palace 
of one of the princes. 

On arriving at the camp about the 9th of June, 
he waited on the prime minister, to learn how he 
should be able to lay the book before the king. 
The minister detained him two hours in a debate 
respecting the Christian religion, mixed, as usual, 
with ridiculous opinions on all subjects. At the 
house of the vizier, some days afterwards, he was 
attacked on the same subject, before a large com- 
pany. Towards the close of the discussion the 
vizier told him, " You had better say, God is God, 
and Mohammed is the prophet of God ;" Mr. 
Martyn at once replied, " God is God, and Jesus 
is the Son of God," which excited their anger, and 
they left him with great contempt. " Thus," said 
he, "I walked away alone to my tent, to pass the 
rest of the day, in heat and dirt. What have I 
done, thought I, to merit all this scorn ? Nothing, 
I trust, but bearing testimony to Jesus. I thought 
over these things in prayer, and my troubled heart 
found that peace which Christ hath promised to his 
disciples." 



166 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

The vizier having sent him word that no English- 
man could be permitted to see the king, unless pre- 
sented by the English ambassador, or having a 
letter of introduction from him, Mr. Martyn pro- 
ceeded towards Tebriz, his residence, in company 
with the English clergyman, and some natives for 
servants and guides. Tebriz or Tauris, is in the 
northern part of Persia, seven hundred miles from 
Shiraz, and at least twenty-five hundred from Cal- 
cutta. " As I sat down in the dust, on a shady 
side of a walled village, by which we passed, and 
surveyed the plains over which our road lay, I 
sighed at the thought of my dear friends in India 
and England ; of the vast regions I must traverse 
before I can get to either, and of the various and 
unexpected hindrances, which present themselves to 
my going forward ; I comfort myself with the hope 
that my God has something for. me to do, by thus 
delaying my departure." They met with much 
insulting treatment on the road, especially from the 
various officers and servants of the king, who had 
possession of the best accommodations, and seemed 
to delight in an opportunity of ill-treating Europe- 
ans. On the 25th of June, they were both seized 
with fever, and unable to proceed. They were 
afraid they would be unable to procure food and 
lodging, as their money failed, and no one would lend 
to them, until a poor mule-driver became security 







. ■ 
.- • ttreafful&d* 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 167 

for them. His journal is little else' than a detail of 
sufferings. He appears to have joined a caravan of 
travellers going the same route. 

" We had now eaten nothing for two days. My 
mind was much disordered from head-ache and 
giddiness, from which I was seldom free ; but my 
heart, I trust, was with Christ and his saints. To 
live mueh longer in this world of sickness and pain 
seemed no way desirable ; the most favourite pros- 
pects of my heart seemed very poor and childish ; 
and cheerfully would I have exchanged them all for 
the unfading inheritance." 

" June 27th. — My Armenian servant was attack- 
ed in the same way. The rest did not get me the 
things that I wanted, so that I passed the third day 
in the same exhausted state ; my head, too, was 
tortured with shocking pains, such as, together with 
the horror I felt at being exposed to the sun, showed 
me plainly to what to ascribe my sickness. To- 
wards evening, two more of our servants were 
attacked in the same way, and lay groaning from 
pains in the head." 

" June 28th. — All were much recovered, but in 
the afternoon I again relapsed. During a high 

fever, Mr. C read to me, in bed, the epistle to 

the Ephesians, and I never felt the consolations of 
that divine revelation of mysteries more sensibly 
and solemnly. Rain in the night prevented our 
setting off." 



168 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYx*. 

" June 29th.— My ague and fever returned, with 
such a head-ache, that I was almost frantic* Again 
and again I said to myself, 'Let patience have her 
perfect work;' and kept pleading the promises, 
* When thou passest through the waters, I will be 
with thee,' &c. ; and the Lord did not withhold 
his presence. I endeavoured to repel all the dis- 
ordered thoughts that the fever occasioned, and to 
keep in mind that all was friendly ; a friendly Lord 
presiding; and nothing exercising me but what 
would show itself at last friendly. A violent per- 
spiration at last relieved the acute pain in my head, 
and my heart rejoiced; but as soon as that was 
over, the exhaustion it occasioned, added to the 
fatigue from the pain, left me in as low a state of 
depression as ever I was in. I seemed about to 
sink into a long fainting fit, and I almost wished it ; 
but at this moment, a little after midnight, I was 
summoned to mount my horse, and set out, rather 
dead than alive. We had a thunder-storm with 
hail." 

" July 1st. — A long and tiresome march to Sare- 
hund: in twenty-eight miles there was no village. 
They had nothing to sell but buttermilk and bread ; 
but a servant of Abbas Mirza, happening to be at 
the same, caravansera, sent us some flesh of a 
mountain cow, which he had shot the day before* 
All day I had scarcely the right recollection of 
myself, from the violence of the ague." 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 169 

" July 2d. — At two in the morning we set out. 
I hardly know when I have been so disordered. I 
had little or no recollection of things, and what I 
did remember, at times, of happy scenes in India 
or England, served only to embitter my present 
situation. Soon after removing into the air, I was 
seized with a violent ague, and in this state I went 
on till sun-rise. At fourteen miles, we found a fine 
caravansera, apparently very little used, as the grass 
was growing in the court. There was nothing all 
round but the barren rocks, which generally 
roughen the country before the mountain rears 
its height. Such an edifice, in such a situation, 
was cheering. Soon after, we came to a river, 
over which was a high bridge ; I sat down in the 
shade under it, with two camel-drivers. The 
caravan, as it happened, forded the river, and 

passed on, without my perceiving it. Mr. C , 

seeing no signs of me, returned, and after looking 
about for some time, espied my horse grazing ; he 
concluded immediately that the horse had flung me 
from the bridge into the river, and was almost 
ready to give me up for lost. My speedy appear- 
ance, from under the bridge relieved his terror and 
anxiety. The pass was a mere nothing to those 
at Bushire ; in fact it was no part of the mountain 
we climbed, but only a few hills. In a natural 
opening in the mountains, on the other side, was a 
P 



170 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

river, with most of its bed dry ; and over it a bridge 
of many arches, which led us to an unwalled village, 
surrounded by corn-fields, which we reached at 
ten o'clock. Half the people still continue ill ; 
for myself, I am, through God's infinite mercy, 
recovering." 

" July 3d. — Started at three, full three hours 
after we ought, and, as was to be expected, we all 
got ill again, from being exposed to the sun six 
hours ; for we did not get to our ground, Turcoman, 
till eleven o'clock. It was a poor village among 
the hills, over which our whole way lay, from 
Miami. Ascending one, and descending another, 
was the whole of the variety, so that I do not know 
when we have had a more tiresome day." 

" July 4th. — I so far prevailed as to get the 
caravan into motion at midnight. Lost our way in 
the night, but arriving at a village were set right 
again. At eight came to Kilk caravansera, but not 
stopping there, went on to a village, where we 
arrived at half-past nine. The baggage not coming 
up till long after, we got no breakfast till one 
o'clock. In consequence of all these things, want 
of sleep, want of refreshment, and exposure to the 
sun, I was presently in a high fever ; which raged 
so furiously all the day, that I was nearly delirious, 
and it was some time before I could get the right 
recollection of myself. I almost despaired, and do 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 171 

now, of getting alive through this unfortunate jour- 
ney. Last night I felt remarkably well, calm, and 
composed, and sat reflecting on my heavenly rest, 
with more sweetness of soul, abstraction from the 
world, and solemn views of God, than I have had 
for a long time. Oh ! for such sacred hours ! 
This short and painful life would scarcely be felt, 
could I live thus at heaven's gate. It being im- 
possible to continue my journey in my present 
state, and one of the servants also being so ill that 
he could not move with safety, we determined to 
halt one day at the village, and sent on a messenger 
to Sir Gore Ousely, the ambassador, who was at 
Tebriz, informing him of our approach." 

" July bth. — Slept all day, and at sun-rise pre- 
pared to proceed all the way to Tebriz, or at least 
to Seid Abad ; but we did not set out till one in the 
morning. I was again dreadfully disordered with 
head-ache and fever. We got into a wretched 
hovel, where the raging fever almost deprived me 
of reason. In the cool of the evening we set out 
to go to Seid Abad, distant about twelve miles. 
When the caravan arrived near Seid Abad, it was 
a dark night, about eleven o'clock, and not one of 
the party knew where it was, nor could we discover 
it by the barking of the dogs, the usual sign. Once 
we heard the bark, and made sure of having at- 
tained our object ; but found only some shepherds 



172 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

keeping wateh over their flocks by night. These 
boors showed us which road to take, which we 
soon found ended in nothing ; so returning, we tried 
to induce one of them to serve as a guide, with the 
promise of any sum of money he required : but all 
in vain. The only thing that remained to be done 
was to lie down on the spot, and wait patiently for 
the day : which I did, and caught such a cold, as, 
with all our other exposures, consummated my 
disorders. As soon as it was day, we found our 

way to the village, where Dr. was waiting 

for us. Not being able to stay for us, he went on 
to Tebriz, and we as far as Wasmuch, where he 
promised to procure for us a fine upper room fur- 
nished; but when we arrived, they denied that 
there was any such place ; at last, after an hour's 
threatening, we got admittance to it. An hour 
before break of day I left it, in hopes of reaching 
Tebriz before sun-rise. Some of the people seemed 
to feel compassion for me, and asked me if I was 
not very ill. At last I reached the gate, and feebly 
asked for a man to show me the way to the am 
bassador's." 

At Tebriz he was confined two months by a fever, 
from which he did not expect to recover. He 
wrote to a friend — " We who are in Jesus, have 
the privilege of viewing life and death as nearly 
the same, since both are ours ; and I thank a 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 173 

gracious Lord that sickness never came at a 
time when I was more free from apparent reasons 
for living. Nothing, seemingly, remains for me to 
do, but to follow the rest of my family to the tomb." 

The New Testament, which he was thus prevent- 
ed from giving, in person, to the Persian monarch, 
was, after Mr. Martyn's death, presented by the 
ambassador ; and the king acknowledged the gift 
in the following letter : 

" In the name of the Almighty God, whose glory 
is most excellent. 

" It is our august command, that the dignified and 
excellent, our trusty, faithful, and loyal well-wisher, 
Sir Gore Ousely, Baronet, his Britannic Majesty's 
Ambassador Extraordinary, (after being honoured 
and exalted with the expressions of our highest 
regard and consideration,) should know, that the 
copy of the Gospel, which was translated into Per- 
sian, by the learned exertions of the late Rev. Henry 
Martyn, and which has been presented to us by 
your Excellency, on the part of the high, dignified, 
learned, and enlightened Society of Christians,* 
united for the purpose of spreading abroad the Holy 
Books of the Religion of Jesus, (upon whom, and 
upon all Prophets, be peace and blessings !) has 
reached us, and has proved highly acceptable to our 
august mind. 

* The British and Foreign Bible Society. 
p 2 



174 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

" In truth, through the learned and unremitting 
exertions of the Rev. Henry Martyn, it has been 
translated in a style most befitting sacred books ; 
that is, in an easy and simple diction. Formerly, 
the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
John, were known in Persia ; but now the whole 
of the New Testament is completed in a most ex- 
cellent manner: and this circumstance has been 
an additional source of pleasure to our enlighten- 
ed and august mind. Even the four Evangelists, 
which were known in this country, had never been 
before explained in so clear and luminous a man- 
ner. We therefore have been particularly delighted 
with this copious and complete translation. Please 
the most merciful God, we shall command the 
select servants, who are admitted to our presence, 
to read to us the above mentioned book, from the 
beginning to the end, that we may, in the most 
minute manner, hear and comprehend its contents. 

" Your excellency will be pleased to rejoice the- 
hearts of the above mentioned dignified, learned, 
and enlightened Society, with assurances of our 
highest regard and approbation ; and to inform those 
excellent individuals, who are so virtuously engaged 
in disseminating and making known the true mean- 
ing and intent of the holy gospel, and other points 
in sacred books, that they are deservedly honoured 
with our royal favour. Your excellency must 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 175 

consider yourself as bound to fulfil this royal 
request." 

The ambassador afterwards took the translation 
to St. Petersburg, in Russia, where it was printed. 



CHAPTER XII. 

His principal design in visiting Persia being 
thus accomplished, and the journey not having con- 
tributed to his health, Mr. Martyn, as soon as he 
had recovered from the attack of fever, determined 
to return to England. Shortly before leaving 
Tebriz, he wrote thus in a letter : 

" It has pleased God to restore me to life and 
health again: not that I have yet recovered my 
former strength, but I consider myself sufficiently 
restored to prosecute my journey. My daiH 
prayer is, that my late chastisement may have it 
intended effect, and make me, all the rest of m} 
days, more humble and less self-confident. Sel 4 
confidence has often let me down fearful lengths ) 
and would, without God's gracious interference, 
prove my endless perdition. I seem to be mad 3 
to feel this evil of my heart, more than any other 
at this time. In prayer, or when I write or con- 



176 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

verse on the subject, Christ appears to me my life 
and strength ; but at other times, I am thoughtless 
and bold, as if I had all life and strength in myself. 
Such neglects on our part are a. diminution of our 
joys. — I mentioned my conversing sometimes on 
divine subjects. In these I am sometimes led on 
by the Sdofle Persians, and tell them all I know of 
the very recesses of the sanctuary. But to give an 
account of all my discussions with these mystic 
philosophers, must be reserved to the time of 
our meeting. — Do I dream ! that I venture to 
think and write of such an event as that ? Is it 
possible that we shall ever meet again below ? 
Though it is possible, I dare not indulge such a 
pleasing hope. 

" In three days I intend setting my horse's head 
towards Constantinople, distant about one thousand 
three hundred miles. Nothing, I think, will occa- 
sion any further detention here, if I can procure 
servants who know both Persian and Turkish. 
Ignorant as I am of Turkish, should I be taken ill 
on the road, my case would be pitiable indeed. 
The ambassador and his suite are still here ; his 
and Lady Ousely's attentions to me during my ill- 
ness have been unremitted. The prince Abbas 
Mirza, the wisest of the king's sons, and heir to 
the throne, was here some time after my arrival. 
I much wished to present a copy of the Persian 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 177 

! New Testament to him, but I could not rise from 

my bed. The book, however, will be given him 

J by the ambassador. Public curiosity about the 

' gospel, now, for the first time in the memory of 

i the modern Persians, introduced into the country, 

is a good deal excited here and at Shiraz, and in 

other places ; so that, upon the whole, I am thank- 

1 ful for having been led hither, and detained ; though 

my residence in this country has been attended 

with many unpleasant circumstances. The way 

of the kings of the east is preparing : thus much 

may be said with safety, but little more. The 

Persians will also probably take the lead in the 

march to Sion." 

On the second of September he left Tebriz, on 
horseback, with two Armenian servants, one of 
whom spoke Turkish, and a little Persian. His 
diary will best exhibit the hardships of the journey, 
and the pious feelings with which he endured 
them. 

" Sept. 4th. — At sun-rise mounted my horse, and 
proceeded north-west, through a pass in the moun- 
tains, towards Murun. By the way, I sat down 
by the brook, and there ate my bread and raisins, 
and drank of the crystal stream ; but either the 
coldness of this unusual breakfast, or the riding after 
it, did not at all agree with me. The heat oppress- 
ed me much, and the road seemed intolerably 



178 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

tedious ; at last we got out from among the moun- 
tains, and saw the village of Murun, in a fine valley 
on the right. It was about eleven o'clock when 
we reached it. As the Mihmander could not im- 
mediately find a place to put me in, we had a com- 
plete view of this village. They stared at my 
European dress, but no disrespect was shown. I 
was deposited, at last, with — — Khan, who was 
seated in a place with three walls. Not at all dis- 
posed to pass the day in company, as well as ex- 
posed, I asked for another room ; on which I was 
shown to the stable, where there was a little place 
partitioned off, but so as to admit a view of the 
horses. The smell of the stable, though not in 
general disagreeable to me, was so strong, that I 
was quite unwell, and strangely dispirited and me- 
lancholy. Immediately after dinner I fell fast asleep, 
and slept four hours ; after which I rose and order- 
ed them to prepare for the next journey. The 
horses being changed here, it was some time 
before they were brought, but by exerting myself, 
we moved off by midnight. It was a most mild 
and delightful night, and the pure air, after the 
smell of the stable, was quite reviving. For once, 
also, I travelled all the way without being sleepy ; 
and beguiled the hours of the night by thinking of 
the 14th Psalm, especially the connection of the 
last three verses with the preceding. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 179 

w Sept. btlu — In five hours we were just on the 
hills which face the pass out of the valley of 
Murun, and in four hours and a half more, emerged 
from between the two ridges of mountains, into the 
valley of Gurjur. This long march was far from 
being a fatiguing one. The air, the road, and my 
spirits were good. Here I was well accommo- 
dated, but had to mourn over my impatient temper 
towards my servants ; there is nothing that disturbs 
my peace so much. How much more noble and 
godlike to bear with calmness, and* observe with 
pity, rather than anger,- the failings and offences of 
others. O that I may, through grace, be enabled 
to recollect myself in the time of temptation ! 
O that the Spirit of God may check my folly, 
and, at such times, bring the lowly Saviour to my 
view. 

" Sept. 6th. — Soon after twelve we started with 
fresh horses, and came to the Arar, or Araxes, 
distant eight miles, and about as broad as the Isis, 
with a current as strong as that of the Ganges. 
The ferry-boat being on the other side, I lay down 
to sleep till it came, but observing my servants do 
the same, I was obliged to get up and exert myself. 
It dawned, however, before we got over. The 
boat was a huge fabric. The ferryman had only a 
itick to push with: an oar, I dare say, he had 
lever seen or heard of, and many of my train had 



180 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN 

probably never floated before ; so alien is a Persian 
from every thing that belongs to shipping. We 
landed safely on the other side in about two minutes. 
We were four hours in reaching Nackshan, and 
for half an hour more I was led from street to 
street, till at last I was lodged in a wash-house 
belonging to a great man, a corner of which was 
cleaned out for me. It was near noon, and my 
baggage was not arrived ; so that I was obliged to 
go without my breakfast ; which was hard after a 
ride for four hours in the sun. The baggage was 
delayed so long, that I began to fear ; at last, how- 
ever, it arrived. All the afternoon I slept, and at 
sun-set arose, and continued wakeful till midnight, 
when I roused my people, and with fresh horses 
set out again. We travelled till sun-rise. I 
scarcely perceived that we had been moving, a 
Hebrew word, in the 16th Psalm, having led me 
gradually into speculations on the eighth conjuga- 
tion of the Arabic verb. I am glad my philological 
curiosity is revived, as my mind will be less liable 
to idleness. 

" Sept. 1th. — Arrived at Khoock, a poor village 
distant twenty-two miles from Nackshan, nearly 
west. I should have mentioned, that on descend- 
ing into the plain of Nackshan, my attention was 
arrested by the appearance of a hoary mountain^ 
opposite to us at the other end, rising so high above 



LIFE OF HENRY MAKTYN\ 181 

the rest, that they sunk into insignificance. It was 
truly sublime, and the interest it excited was not 
lessened, when, on inquiring its name, I was told 
it was Agri, or Ararat. Thus I saw two remarka- 
ble objects in one day, the Araxes, and Ararat. At 
four in the afternoon we set out for Shurror. The 
evening was pleasant ; the ground over which we 
-passed was full of rich cultivation and verdure, 
watered by many a stream, and containing forty 
villages, most of them with the usual appendage 
of gardens. To add to the scene, the great Ararat 
was on our left. On the peak of that hill the 
whole church w r as once contained ; it has now 
spread far and wide, even to the ends of the earth ; 
but the ancient vicinity of it knows it no more. I 
fancied many a spot where Noah perhaps offered 
his sacrifices ; and the promise of God, ' that seed- 
time and harvest should not cease,' appeared to me 
to be more exactly fulfilled in the agreeable plain 
in which it was spoken, than elsewhere ; as I had 
not seen such fertility in any part of the Shah's 
dominions. Here the blessed saint landed in a new 
world ; so may I, safe in Christ, outride the storm 
of life, and land at last on one of the everlasting 
hills ! 

" Night coming on, we lost our way, and got in- 
tercepted by some deep ravines, into one of which 
the horse that carried my trunks sunk so deep, that 
Q 



182 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

the water got into one of them, wetted the linen, and* 
spoiled some books. We went to another village, 
where after a long delay, two aged men with silver 
beards opened their house to us. Though it was 
near midnight, I had a fire lighted to dry my books, 
took some coffee, and sunk into deep sleep ; from 
which awaking at the earliest dawn of 

" Sept, Sth. — I roused the people, and had a 
delightful ride to Shurror. Here I was accommo- 
dated by the great man with a stable, or winter 
room ; for they build it in such a strange vicinity, 
in order to have it warm in winter. At present, 
while the weather is still hot, the smell is at times 
overpowering. At eleven at night we moved off. 
with fresh horses, for Duwala; but though we 
had guides in abundance, we were not able to extri- 
cate ourselves from the ravines with which this 
village is surrounded. Procuring another man 
from a village we happened to wander into, we at 
last made our way, through grass and mire, to the 
pass, which led us to a country as dry as the one 
we had left was wet. Ararat was now quite near : 
at the foot of it is Duwala, twenty-four miles from 
Nackshan, where we arrived at seven in the morn- 
ing of 

" Sept. 9th. — As I had been thinking all night 
of a Hebrew letter, I perceived little of the tedious- 
Bess of the way. I tried also some difficulties in 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 183 

the 16th Psalm, without being able to master them. 
All day on the 15th and 16th Psalms, and gained 
some light into the difficulties. The villagers not 
bringing the horses in time, we were not able to 
go on at night ; but I was not much concerned, 
as I thereby gained some rest. 

" Sept. 10th. — All day at the village, writing 
down notes on the 15th and 16th Psalms. Moved 
at midnight and arrived early in the morning at 
Erivan. 

" Sept. llth. — I alighted at Hosyn Khan, the 
governor's palace, as it may be called, for he 
seems to live in a style equal to that of a prince. 
After sleeping two hours, I was summoned to his 
presence. He at first took no notice of me, but 
continued reading his Koran. After a compliment 
or two he resumed his devotions. The next cere- 
mony was to exchange a rich shawl dress for a still 
richer pelisse, on pretence of its being cold. The 
next display was to call for his physician, who, 
after respectfully feeling his pulse, stood on one 
side : this was to show that he had a domestic 
physician. His servants were most richly clad. 
My letter from the ambassador, which till now had 
lain neglected on the ground, was opened and read 
by a moonshee. He heard with great interest 
what Sir Gore had written about the translation 
of the gospels. After this he was very kind and 



184 LIFE OF HENRY MAHTYN. 

attentive, and sent for Lieutenant M- of the 

engineers, who was stationed, with two Serjeants, 
at this fort. In the afternoon, the governor sent 
for me again in private. A fountain, in a basin of 
white marble, was playing before him, and in its 
water grapes and melons were cooling ; two time- 
pieces were before him, to show the approach of 
the time of lawful repast : below the window, at a 
great depth, ran a broad and rapid stream, over 
rocks and stones, under a bridge of two arches, 
producing an agreeable murmur : on the other side 
of the river were gardens, and a rich plain ; and 
directly in front, Ararat. He was now entirely 
free from ceremony, but too much fatigued to con- 
verse. I tried to begin a religious discussion, by 
observing that ' he was in one paradise now, and 
was in quest of another hereafter,' but this remark 
produced no effect. " 

The next day he went to Ech-Miazin, where 
there are three churches of Greek Christians, and 
a monastery. The worship and creed of the 
Greek church resemble, in some respects, those 
of the Roman Catholic, but it does not acknow- 
ledge the Pope. Mr. Martyn was very kindly 
entertained here, until the 17th, when he again set 
out with servants and a guard, as the woods in Tur- 
key, on which they would soon enter, were much 
beset with robbers. The route lay through a 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 185 

deserted mountainous region, with an occasional 
village, where the missionary was an object of 
great curiosity. He seems to have enjoyed the 
wild scenery, as much as a person travelling with 
a company of ignorant and noisy companions could. 
" The clear streams in the valley, the lofty trees 
crowning; the summit of the hills, the smooth 
paths winding away and losing themselves in the 
dark woods, and, above all, the solitude that reigned 
throughout, composed a scene which tended to 
harmonize and solemnize the mind. What displays 
of taste and magnificence are found occasionally on 
this ruined earth ! Nothing was wanting but the 
absence of the Turks." 

At a village, on the 29th, he was attacked with 
fever and ague. He suffered the next day from 
sickness and depression of spirits, but his soul 
rested, as he said, " on Him who is as an anchor 
of the soul, sure and steadfast, which, though not 
seen, keeps me fast." 

On the 1st of October, " Marched over a moun- 
tainous tract : we were out from seven in the morn- 
ing till eight at night. After sitting a little by the 
fire, I was near fainting from sickness. My de- 
pression of spirits led me to the throne of grace, as 
a sinful, abject worm. When I thought of myself 
and my transgressions, I could find no text so 
cheering as, 'My ways are not as your ways.' 
q2 



186 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN, 

From the men who accompanied Sir William 
Ousely to Constantinople, I learned that the plague 
was raging at Constantinople, and thousands dying 
every xlay. One of the Persians had died of it. 
They added, that the inhabitants of Tocat were 
flying from their town from the same cause. 
Thus I am passing inevitably into imminent dan- 
ger. O Lord, thy will be done ! Living or dying, 
remember me ! 

The principal guard and leader of the party was 
a Tartar, named Hassan Aga. His treatment of 
Mr. Martyn from this time, was inhuman, and the 
journal of the next five days gives a deeply affect- 
ing narrative of the sufferings to which the savage 
conduct of his guide exposed him. 

" Oct. 2d.-— Some hours before day, I sent to 
tell the Tartar I was ready, but Hassan Aga was 
for once riveted to his bed. However, at eight, 
having got strong hdrses, he set off at a great rate, 
and over the level ground he made us gallop as fast 
as the horses would go, to Chhiick> where we 
arrived at sun-set. I was lodged, at my request, 
in the stables of the post-house, not liking the 
scrutinizing impudence of the fellows who frequent 
the coffee room. As soon as it began to grow a 
little cold, the ague came on, and then the fever : 
after which I had a sleep, which let me know too 
plainty the disorder of my frame. In the night, 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 187 

Hassan sent to summon me away, but I was quite 
unable to move. Finding me still in bed at the 
dawn, he began to storm furiously at my detaining 
him so long ; but I quietly let him spend his ire, 
ate my breakfast composedly, and set out at eight. 
He seemed determined to make up for the delay, 
for we flew over hill and dale to Sherean, where 
he changed horses. From thence we travelled all 
the rest of the day and all night ; it rained most 
of the time. Soon after sun-set the ague came 
on again, which, in my wet state, was very trying ; 
I hardly knew how to keep my life in me. About 
that time there was a village at hand ; but Hassan 
had no mercy. At one in the morning we found 
two men under a wain, with a good fire ; they 
could not keep the rain out, but their fire was 
acceptable. I dried my lower extremities, allayed 
the fever by drinking a good deal of water, and 
went on. We had little rain, but the night was 
pitchy dark, so that I could not see the road 
under my horse's feet. However, God being 
mercifully pleased to alleviate my bodily suffering, 
I went on contentedly to the next stage, where 
we arrived at break of day. After sleeping three 
or four hours, I was visited by an Armenian mer- 
chant, for whom I had a letter. Hassan was in 
great fear of being arrested here; the governor 
of the city had vowed to make an example of him 



188 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

for riding to death a horse belonging to a man 
of this place. He begged that I would shelter 
him in case of danger ; his being claimed by an 
Englishman, he said, would be a sufficient security. 
I found, however, that I had no occasion to inter- 
fere. He hurried me away from this place without 
delay, and galloped furiously towards a village, 
which, he said, was four hours distant ; which was 
all I could undertake in my present weak state ; 
but village after village did he pass, till night 
coming on, and no signs of another, I suspected 
that he was carrying me on to the next stage ; so 
I got off my horse, and sat upon the ground, and 
told him, £ I neither could nor would go any 
further.' He stormed, but I was immovable ; till, 
a light appearing at a distance, I mounted my 
horse and made towards it, leaving him to follow 
or not, as he pleased. He brought in the party, 
but would not exert himself to get a place for 
me. They brought me to an open verandah, but 
Sergius* told them I wanted a place in which to be 
alone. This seemed very offensive to them : * And 
why must he be alone V they asked ; ascribing 
this desire of mine to pride, I suppose. Tempted, 
at last, by money, they brought me to a stable- 
room, and Hassan and a number of others planted 
themselves there with me. My fever here in- 
* One of Mr. Martyn's servants. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 189 

creased to a violent degree ; the heat in my eyes and 
forehead was so great, that the fire almost made 
me frantic. I entreated that it might be put out, 
or that I might be carried out of doors. Neither 
was attended to : my servant, who, from my sitting 
in that strange way on the ground, believed me 
delirious, was deaf to all I said. At last I pushed 
my head in among the luggage, and lodged it on 
the damp ground, and slept. 

" Oct. Mh.— Preserving mercy made me see the 
light of another morning. The sleep had refreshed 
me, but I was feeble and shaken ; yet the merciless 
Hassan hurried me off. The stopping place, how- 
ever, not being distant, I reached it without much 
difficulty. I expected to have found it another 
strong fort at the end of the pass ; but it is a poor 
little village within the jaws of the mountains. I 
was pretty well lodged, and felt tolerably well till 
a little after sunset, when the ague came on with a 
violence I had never before experienced ; I felt as 
if in a palsy : my teeth chattering, and my whole 
frame violently shaken. Aga Hosyn and another 
Persian, on their way here from Constantinople, 
going to Abbas Mirza, whom I had just before 
been visiting, came hastily to render me assistance 
if they could. These Persians appear quite bro- 
therly after the Turks. While they pitied me, 
Hassan sat in perfect indifference, ruminating on 



190 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

the further delay this was likely to occasion. The 
cold fit, after continuing two or three hours, was 
followed by a fever, which lasted the whole night, 
and prevented sleep. 

" Oct. 6th. — -No horses being to be had, I had 
an unexpected repose. I sat in the orchard, and 
thought, with sweet comfort and peace, of my God ; 
In solitude, my company, my friend and comforter. 
Oh ! when shall time give place to eternity ! When 
shall appear that new heaven and new earth wherein 
dwelleth righteousness ! There, there shall in no 
wise enter in any thing that defileth : none of that 
wickedness which has made men worse than wild 
beasts, — none of those corruptions which add still 
more to the miseries of mortality, shall be seen or 
heard of any more." 

These were the last words that Martyn wrote! 
Nothing more is known of his fate than that he 
reached the town of Tocat, in Turkey, nearly 
six hundred miles from Tebriz, and about three 
hundred from Constantinople, and that he died there 
on the 16th of October, being in the thirty-second 
year of his life. The plague was raging when he 
arrived, and his sickness and fatigue made him 
yery liable to the disease ; and his weakness was 
such, that he could not long sustain it. No par- 
ticulars of his sickness and death have ever been 
learned. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 191 

Two American missionaries, who passed through 
Tocat in the year 1830, found his grave in an 
Armenian burying-place, covered with a tomb-stone, 
which had been erected by an English traveller, 
the year after his interment. The only information 
they could obtain was, that Mr. Martyn arrived 
there sick, that some Armenians gave him medicine, 
and that he died in four or five days. As hundreds 
were dying daily of the plague, it was thought pro- 
bable that he was not admitted into any private 
house, and that he died at the post-house. On the 
tombstone is a Latin inscription, of which the fol- 
lowing is a translation : 

IN MEMORY OF THE 

rev. HENRY* MARTYN, of England, 

A MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL, AND A MISSIONARY ; 

A PIOUS, LEARNED, AND FAITHFUL SERVANT OF 

THE LORD, 

WHO CALLED HIM TO A STATE OF FELICITY, 

WHILST AT TOCAT, ON HIS RETURN TO HIS 

NATIVE COUNTRY, A. D. 1812. 

C. J. R. INSCRIBED THIS STONE TO HIS MEMORY, 

A. D. 1813. 

There he died, alone, in a land of strangers, with 
not a Christian to attend him. But there can be 
no doubt that, if his reason was preserved, he was 
* On the stone the name is erroneously put William. 



192 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

happy in that illness, that his faith in Christ ena- 
bled him to bear his sufferings, and to expect with 
joy a speedy admittance to the presence of his God 
and Saviour. — To an unpardoned person it is incredi- 
ble that a Christian can have so strong an assurance 
that his sins have been forgiven for Christ's sake, 
and that God has thus become reconciled to him, 
as that he can be happy in the prospect of dying. 
But it is certain that this is often the case, and that 
Christians, even whilst suffering the most terrible 
pain in their bodies, have felt a peace and joy in 
the belief that they were near heaven, greater than 
all the comforts of life have ever bestowed on them 
or on others. Wherever the believer lives or dies, 
Christ is with him. God is his Father, and he has 
nothing to fear. It seems to us distressing, that 
Marty n should die so far away from his home, and 
his friends, in a nation of idolaters ; but it is proba- 
ble these things did not affect him, and that the 
dying missionary at Tocat was happier than he 
would have been in health and peace, among his 
friends in England. In his lonely journeys he 
had often been able to quote the lines, 

" In desert tracts, with Thee, my God, 
How happy could I be." 

And he doubtless found Him still nearer in his 
dying hour, when flesh and strength failed him ; 
for the Saviour adapts his consolations to the cir- 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 193 

cumstances of his people, and in proportion to their 
necessities, he imparts more of the gifts of his 
Holy Spirit, and they are enabled to say, " Though 
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
I will fear no evil : for Thou art with me ; thy rod 
and thy staff comfort me." 

When Mr. Martyn left England for India, it was 
his expectation and desire to be employed princi- 
pally in preaching to the natives. It is evident 
that this was not the design of Providence, but that 
he was sent to translate the scriptures into the lan- 
guages of Asia, that the gospel might thus be put 
into the hands of millions of persons who were 
wholly ignorant of the existence of a divine revela- 
tion. Mr. Martyn in this way did more for the 
evangelizing of all those nations who speak the 
Hindoostanee, Arabic, and Persian, during the six 
years that he was in India, than he could have ac- 
complished by preaching to them all his life. As 
he himself observed of the Arabic alone, " we will 
begin to preach to Arabia, Syria, Persia, Tartary, 
part of India and China, half of Africa, all the sea 
coast of the Mediterranean, and Turkey, and one 
tongue shall suffice for them all." The Hindoos- 
tanee and Persian are understood by a large por- 
tion of the rest of India, who do not speak Arabic. 

He has given them the Bible, and we cannot cal- 
culate the amount of good which will attend its cir- 
R 



194 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

culation. Without it all the labours of mission- 
aries would be in vain ; but with it, they are sure 
of the success which God has promised to attend 
his own word.„ Besides the importance of his ser- 
vices in this great means of preparing the way of 
the Lord, his ministry was blessed to the conver- 
sion, as there is every reason to believe, of several 
of the natives. One of these was the fruit of his 
labours in Cawnpore, and was baptized at Calcutta, 
in the fortieth year of his age, by the name of Ab- 
dool Messeeh — " servant of Christ." He was 
employed eight years by the Church Missionary 
Society, to instruct the young in the principles of 
the Christian religion, and was ordained as a Lu- 
theran minister in 1820, and as an Episcopal min- 
ister by Bishop Heber, in 1825. He died in 
1827. Through his instrumentality more than 
forty adult Hindoos were brought to embrace 
Christianity.* 

Another instance of the success of his ministry, 
is furnished by a writer in a foreign journal, who 
states that, on a visit to Shiraz several years since, 
he met a Persian named Rahem, who gave him the 
following account. 

" There came to this city an Englishman, who 
taught the religion of Christ, with a boldness hith- 
erto unparalleled in Persia, in the midst of much 
* See a further account of this person in the Appendix. 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN". 195 

scorn and ill treatment from our moollahs, as well 
as the rabble. He was a beardless youth, and evi- 
dently enfeebled by disease. He dwelt among us 
for more than a year. I was then a decided enemy 
to infidels, as the Christians are termed by the fol- 
lowers of Mohammed, and I visited this teacher of 
the despised sect, with the declared object of treat- 
ing him with scorn, and exposing his doctrines to 
contempt. Although I persevered for some time 
in this behaviour towards him, I found that every 
interview not only increased my respect for the in- 
dividual, but diminished my confidence in the faith 
in which I was educated. His extreme forbearance 
towards the violence of his opponents, the calm and 
yet convincing manner in which he exposed the 
fallacies and sophistries by which he was assailed, 
(for he spoke Persian excellently,) gradually inclin- 
ed me to listen to his arguments, to inquire dispas- 
sionately into the subject of them, and, finally, to 
read a tract which he had written, in reply to a de- 
fence of Islam by our chief moollahs. Need I 
detain you longer ? The result of my examination 
was a conviction that the young disputant was 
right. Shame, or rather fear, withheld me from 
avowing this opinion ; I even avoided the society 
of the Christian teacher, though he remained in the 
city so long. Just before he quitted Shiraz, I could 
not refrain from paying him a farewell visit. Our 



106 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 

conversation,— -the memory of it will never fade 
from the tablet of my mind,— sealed my conversion. 
He gave me a book — it has ever been my constant 
companion — the study of it has formed my most 
delightful occupation— its contents have often con- 
soled me." 

" Upon this," continues the writer, " he put in- 
to my hands a copy of the New Testament, in 
Persian ; on one of the blank leaves it was writ- 
ten, — There is joy in heaven over one sinner that 
repenteth.^—HETSiKY Martyn." 

In considering the life of Mr. Martyn as an ex- 
ample to ourselves, we should view his devotedness 
to the service of God. In this he stopped at no 
sacrifices, but gave up his home, his prospects, his 
health, that he might labour to promote the glory 
of God, by bringing the heathen to acknowledge 
him, and to receive the gospel of his blessed Son. 
This he did willingly and cheerfully, because he 
loved the service ; and because, as he once said to a 
Persian, he " could not endure existence, if Jesus 
was not glorified." Another motive was a desire 
to bring men to salvation— to persuade them to 
come to the Saviour, and learn the way of eternal 
life. In all this, he was but discharging his duty 
as a disciple of Christ ; and especially as a minister 
of the gospel, obeying the divine command, " Go 
into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 



LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 197 

creature." Now, every Christian will be anxious 
to be actively employed in the service of his Re- 
deemer. He will not be satisfied with the belief 
that he is saved, and continue to live, without 
making any effort and any self-denials, to promote 
the cause of Christianity. Indeed, such a feeling 
is a strong evidence that he has never been the 
subject of grace, that he has never felt the love of 
God in Christ, and seen from the scriptures that 
he is required to be active in his Saviour's cause. 
The Holy Spirit has declared, that as a tree is 
known by its fruits, whether it be a good one or 
not, so a true Christian is known by the service he 
renders to God : and that an unprofitable servant, 
— a professed disciple who does not improve the 
opportunities which he has of doing good, — will be 
rejected at the judgment day. The entire devotion 
of ourselves, and all we have, to our Divine Mas- 
ter, is required of every living being, as much 
as it was of Henry Martyn : and although every 
one is not called to be a missionary, yet every 
one may find some field for active, zealous ser- 
vice. 

Reader, — whether converted or unconverted, — 
have you ever thought that you were bound to serve 
God thus ? have you ever believed that God has been 
all your life claiming your service, as your crea- 
tor, your preserver, your eternal Father ? If you are 
r2 



198 LIFE 0F HENRY MARTYN. 

not inclined to love and serve him, " with all your 
heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind," 
ask yourself this moment why it is so, and what 
excuse you will have to offer for your neglect, 
when it shall be charged upon you at the day of 
judgment. The commands of Christ, as has al- 
ready been remarked, are as binding on you, as 
any of the commandments of the moral law ; and 
if you are not now an active, sincere disciple, living 
by faith upon Him, and living to his glory, the 
guilt of your natural sinfulness is awfully aggra- 
vated. 

The zeal and devotion of Mr. Martyn were not 
beyond his duty. There is no such thing as a man 
being more holy, or doing more good than God re- 
quires of him. Had he done tenfold more, he could 
not have, on that account, procured the pardon of 
a single sin. So let not the Christian think that 
he deserves credit and praise for any thing he in ay 
do, or that he thus gains a right to heaven. God 
does, indeed, condescend to accept our services, 
and to use us as instruments of doing good, but it 
is he who gives us both the inclination and the 
ability to serve him ; therefore he deserves all the 
praise. Not that this excuses us for being idle, 
and waiting for him to compel us to be zealous for 
him. Our duty is to pray, " Lord, what wilt thou 
have us to do ?" and at the same time to be seek- 



LIFE OF IIIJXRY MARTTN. 199 

ing out ways of doing good. No person need be 
idle or useless a moment, who has faculties, pro- 
perty, or strength, which he can consecrate. Let 
every one, then, fix upon something that will ab- 
sorb his attention, and resolve, with reliance upon 
the grace of God, to expend every effort in ac- 
complishing it ; not to be put back by small dis- 
couragements, but to exercise strong faith in 
Christ. That is the principle which will enable 
us to do every thing. Every Christian may say, 
and ought to feel, " I can do all things through 
Christ, who strengthened me." 

Thus let us act from the principles of love and 
duty, and then we shall find that God has connect- 
ed our duty with our happiness, and that the more 
we sacrifice for him — the more danger and re- 
proach, and hardships we may encounter, the 
greater will be the peace and joy of our souls. In 
infinite condescension, God speaks of rewards to 
those who serve him. Oh, he would be just, after 
all our labours, to cast us from his presence ; but 
he graciously promises to give his blessing to those 
who strive to do his will, though they do it imper- 
fectly. And those who have humbly and zealous- 
ly applied themselves to the single purpose of 
living for God, have found that he has given 
them happiness beyond what they had conceived. 



200 LIFE. OF HENRY MARTYN. 

This internal bliss is comprehended in the assertion 
of the apostle Paul, when he says, " eye hath not 
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared 
for those who love him; but God hath revealed 
them unto us by his Spirit?* 



201 



APPENDIX. 



ABDOOL MESSEEH. 

The following interesting history of this convert 
is given in a Report of the Church Missionary 
Society : 

"'He was born at Delhi. His original name was 
Shekh Salih. His father is considered a learned 
man, and gains a livelihood by teaching children. 
Shekh Salih was instructed by his father, and made 
considerable proficiency both in the Persian and 
Arabic languages. 

" When he was about twenty-one years of age, 
he came- with his father to Lukhnow, in quest 
of employment ; and after some time, became 
moonshee, first to an English merchant, and then 
to an officer in the East India Company's ser- 
vice. At this time Abdool was so zealous a 
Mussulman, that he induced a Hindoo servant of 
the above officer to become a Mohammedan. The 
master finding some fault with him for his of- 
ficiousness, he was so offended as to leave his 
employ, and return to Lukhnow, with a deter- 
mination of having no more communication with 

201 



202 APPENDIX. 

the British. After this he engaged in a varie- 
ty of pursuits, and visited different parts of the 
country, being always very attentive, and endea- 
vouring to render others so, to the Mohammedan 
observances. 

"At length, after having been about a year in 
some situation under the Nabob of Lukhnow, he 
went into the Mahratta country, and engaged as a 
trooper in the service of Ibrahim AH Khan, one of 
the chieftains of the Javudpore Rajah. While under 
the command of this chief, Meer Khan, another 
chieftain, at that time in the service of the same 
Rajah, was sent to murder Rao Scivac Sing, the 
rival of the Javudpore Rajah. This transaction is 
well known in India. Meer Khan swore on the 
Koran, that he came to mediate a peace between 
his employer and the Rao, whom he no sooner de- 
coyed into his tent, than, having gone out on some 
pretence, he caused the cords of it to be cut, and 
ordered his attendants to stab the visiters involved 
in its folds. The ill-fated Rao cut his way through 
the folds of the tent with a dagger, and bravely de- 
fended himself until overpowered by numbers ; his 
head was severed from his body, and after being 
carried about in triumph, was sent to the Rajah. 
This Scivac Sing, Abdool relates, was a young 
man of very interesting appearance ; and pity far 
his untimely death, with the horror excited by the 



APPENDIX. 203 

sight of his head, exposed a& a spectacle, raised a 
feeling of disgust at the perfidy of mankind. Ab- 
dool had hitherto been a stranger to such treachery ; 
and considering, as he says, that he himself was 
liable to be made the executioner of equally inhu- 
man measures, he resolved on quitting the army, 
and earning his bread in some peaceful way, by 
any labour, however degrading. This determina- 
tion he put in practice ; and returning to Lukh- 
now, supported himself by preparing green paint. 
"At the end of about a year, Abdool went to 
Cawnpore to visit his father, at that time^ engaged 
as private tutor in the house of a rich native, who 
lived in the premises next to those of the Rev. Henry 
Martyn. He here heard of Mr. Martyn's preaching 
to the poor natives, who assembled on the lawn be- 
fore his house on Sundays. He determined to go, 
as he expressed it, to see the sport. Mr. Martyn 
was explaining the commandments to the people, 
when Abdool went to hear; and he was struck 
with the observations that were made, and consid- 
ered them as both reasonable and excellent. He 
had previously been perplexed about the contradic- 
tions maintained by the different Mohammedan 
sects, and this Christian instruction appeared to 
him better than any he had as yet received. He 
told his father what opinion he had formed, and 
begged him to get him some employment at Cawn- 



204 APPENDIX. 

pore, where he might hear of more of these things. 
His father was acquainted with a friend of Sabat T 
who was then living with Mr. Martyn ; and through 
this friend, Abdool was engaged, in May 1810, to 
copy Persian writings for Sabat. He obtained a 
lodging on the premises, without making known 
his wishes. Here he had many opportunities of 
obtaining the information which he desired, par- 
ticularly by inquiring of the native Christian chil- 
dren the subjects of the lessons which they had 
learned in school : and- by this mode, he was 
enabled to gain some insight into Divine Truth. 

" When Mr. Martyn had finished his translation 
of the New Testament into Hindoostanee, the book 
was given Abdool to bind. This he considered as 
a fine opportunity ; nor did he let it slip. On read- 
ing the word of God, he discovered his state, and 
perceived therein a true description of his own 
heart. He soon decided in favour of the Christian 
religion ; but still concealed what was passing 
within him, till Mr. Martyn being about to leave 
Cawnpore on account of his health, Abdool could 
no longer refrain from asking his advice with re- 
spect to his future conduct ; earnestly desiring at 
the same time, to be baptized. It was agreed that 
he should go down to Calcutta with Sabat and Mr. 
Martyn, from, whom he received a solemn warning 
of the danger of a false profession. During the 



APPENDIX. 205 

short period of Mr. Martyn's stay at Calcutta, he 
was not entirely convinced of this man's real 
change of heart : recommending him, therefore, to 
the notice of the late Rev. David Brown, he de- 
parted without gratifying Abdool's wish for bap- 
tism. After five month's further delay, Mr. Brown, 
having observed his conduct, and being satisfied 
with it, baptized him in the old church, on Whit- 
Sunday, 1811. 

" On this occasion, Mr. Brown WTOte to a friend : 
* On Sunday last, I publicly baptized Shekh Salih. 
It was a most solemn and heart-affecting occasion. 
Private notice was given, that it would be in the 
afternoon. Good people of all ranks attended, and 
in the evening, I preached on the subject. This 
has made a very serious impression at Calcutta. I 
have had great satisfaction in the event. The cir- 
cumstances of his case were remarkable. May 
we every Whit-Sunday witness similar wonders 
of grace ! I made full investigation, and was 
thoroughly satisfied with the Shekh's account 
of his conversion. His Christian name is Ab- 
dool Messeeh, — ' Servant of Christ / a particu- 
lar .circumstance leading to the selection of that 
name. 5 

"From this period, he was noticed by some 
among Mr. Brown's congregation, and gained from 
their instruction a growing acquaintance with his 
S 



206 APPENDIX. 

own fallen state, and the remedy provided for it 
through the Saviour. 

" From Whit-Sunday 181 1, till last July, Abdool 
continued to reside in Calcutta. Much opposition 
he met with from the Mohammedans, who made 
him many offers of money, &c, if he would re- 
nounce Christianity, or leave the place. Twice, 
on frivolous pretences, he was summoned before 
the British magistrate, and discharged with costs. 
Under these circumstances, his temper has appear- 
ed to great advantage, and invariably, such as one 
should have wished. To put an end to these vexa- 
tions, he was advised to remove to Chinsurah in 
July; where his conversation and example produc- 
ed a good effect on many, especially on a Roman 
Catholic Portuguese, and the son of an Armenian 
priest, who have both expressed an intention of 
following him up the country, that they may enjoy 
his company, and partake of his labours." 

The Rev. Mr. Corrie accompanied Abdool on a 
missionary tour in India ; and from the journal 
which he kept, the following extracts are made. 
Whilst this narrative gives evidence of the zeal and 
piety of the individual, and thus exemplifies the 
power of religion, it is interesting as a specimen of 
the method which missionaries have to pursue in Pa- 
gan countries, and as proof of. the great importance 
of having native converts employed in this work. 



APPENDIX. 20? 

" 1812, Nov. 20th. — We left the neighbourhood 
of Calcutta, having two friends in company. There 
was a large party of boatmen and servants." 

" Nov. 29th. — We rested in a lonely place. In 
the afternoon, Abdool collected the boatmen and 
others on the bank, to the number of about forty, 
and preached to them. He began and ended with 
a hymn, after the manner of the Asiatic religious, 
in which he was joined by the Christian children 
and servants. His discourse was from the latter 
end of the first chapter of St. Matthew. He spoke 
of our sinful state by nature, adducing many proofs 
observable in their own life and conversation, 
which render a Saviour necessary ; enlarged on 
the birth of Christ without sin, that he might be a 
suitable surety for sinners ; the meaning of his 
name Jesus, Immanuel ; bringing forward proofs 
of his divine power, and pointing out the salvation 
which he bestows. The latter part was very satis- 
factory indeed, as an evidence of his acquaintance 
with the change which passes in the Christian's 
mind. His discourse was intermixed with exhor- 
tations to embrace the religion of the only Saviour. 
Some, it seems, set light by what they heard : 
others approved, and said his book contained more 
weighty truths than their Shasters." 

" Dec. 5£/i.— Saturday. We arrived in the neigh- 
bourhood of a Christian friend, and our party went 



208 APPENDIX. 

from the boats to pass the Sunday at his house, 
and found, literally, in the wilderness God present 
in our little assembly. 

"Abdool could not get the boatmen to attend 
him; and therefore, taking the Christian children 
with him, he went to a village at a little distance, 
and began to sing his hymn. The whole village, 
men, women, and children, soon gathered round 
him ; he explained to them the ten commandments, 
and enforced their obligation. They heard with 
much attention." 

" Dec, 29th. — At Dinapore we were gratified 
with the sight of a large school of native children, 
kept by the Baptist missionaries. They have 
another school in a neighbouring village. One of 
the missionaries told me, that Mr. Martyn's name 
is held in great esteem by the natives here ; and 
that the schools which he had instituted when here, 
had rendered the way easier ; for the people now 
send their children to school without scruple. I re- 
member it was not so when Mr. M arty n began his 
schools." 

" 1813, Jan. 3.— Sunday. Our boat staid at Rib- 
bon Gunge. In the afternoon, Abdool went into 
the bazar, and preached. At first, the people 
showed no attention ; but gradually, one and ano- 
ther stood, till a crowd collected, and more attention 
seemed excited than at any place before.^ After 



APPENDIX. 209 

he had finished his discourse, the people gathered 
round him, and asked many questions about the 
names which he had mentioned. Three came 
clown to his boat with him, and passed a good deal 
of the evening in conversation ; writing down from 
his lips what he told them in brief of Christian 
truth." 

"Jan. 1th. — At Baxar. Early in the morning 
walked with Abdool toward the European barracks. 
On drawing near, some of the native wives of the 
soldiers recognized me, and several came out and 
expressed their gladness to see me, and said they 
should be happy to have public worship. These 
had been of my congregation at Chunar. Abdool 
expressed great satisfaction, and observed that this 
was the first time he had seen native Christians 
desire divine service. About ten, we had public 
worship with the Europeans, the commanding of- 
ficer attending. About twenty native Christians, 
mostly women, assembled in another place, with 
Abdool ; after reading prayers, he was led to dis- 
course long on subjects which occurred at the time, 
and says he never felt his heart so drawn out 
during any exercise as here. Several, also, of the 
congregation were affected, even to tears." 

"Jan. 10th. — Sunday. Rested at Ghazeepore 
In the afternoon, Abdool walked into the native 
town. Met with the chief land-owner in the place 
s2 



210 APPENDIX. 

and neighbourhood ; a man of wealth and of great 
good nature, and much esteemed among his own 
people, as a holy man. After some conversation, 
he invited Abdool to his house, where about a 
hundred people were assembled, before whom 
much discussion took place about religion. The 
above person showed more disposition to at- 
tend than any of them ; and begged to have two 
copies of St. Matthew, and two of Persian, and 
that all the translations should be sent him from 
time to time." 

" Jan. 14th. — We reached Benares. On Friday, 
Abdool went up to Secrole, to visit a native doctor 
there, of Portuguese origin. They had much con- 
versation together, with which the above person 
expressed himself greatly delighted. He thankful- 
ly accepted a copy of the morning prayer and 
litany, promising to begin worship in his family. 
Abdool visited other native Christians there, with 
less satisfaction. In returning to his boat, he had 
a long discussion with a crowd of Mussulmans. 

" On Saturday, Abdool went to Chunar ; and on 
Sunday forenoon, held public worship there. On 
that, but few attended ; but those were greatly af- 
fected ; many of them even to loud sobbing and 
tears. They earnestly requested that he would 
preach again the next day, which he did to a large 
assembly ; and on Tuesday also. They heard with 
s 2 



APPENDIX. 211 

great attention, and detained him long afterwards 
with inquiries on the subject on which he had ad- 
dressed them. A party came down to his boat, 
begging he would read the scriptures to them ; 
and adding, c Alas ! when master was here,' (mean- 
ing Mr. Corrie, who had been chaplain at Chunar,) 
' we paid too little attention to his labours. Would 
you were to remain among us !' " 

" Jan. 22.— At Mirzapore, a young man came 
on board, who said he had followed from Chunar, 
oh purpose to hear more from Abdool, and to beg 
a copy of the translation. He is the son of a Ze- 
mindar, and appears serious, and full of inquiries. 
He said he knew, that in the latter days, all shall 
become of one religion ; and he supposed the time 
to be at hand." 

" Jan. 23. — In the morning we arrived at Al- 
lahabad. 

" The concourse of people assembled to cele- 
brate the annual bathing season, was unusually 
great. Every one that bathes at the junction of 
the Ganges and Jumma, pays to government a ru- 
pee ; and from a calculation made two days before 
the close of the festival, it was expected that 250,000 
rupees would be collected. Those who drown 
themselves pay an additional sum to government. 
One poor wretch had drowned himself, with the 
usual ceremonies, before our arrival. Several more 



212 APPENDIX. 

had signified their intention of doing so, at the 
eclipse of the sun, on February 1 ; and many, it 
was expected, as is annually the case, would, from 
the pressure of the crowd, be thrust beyond their 
depth, and perish in the waters. The sight of such 
a multitude, collected on so deplorable an occasion, 
could not but affect a feeling mincf. And is not the 
error of Balaam chargeable on those, who, possess- 
ing the vision of the Almighty, love and receive the 
wages of such superstitious iniquity ?" 

" In going to the house of a merchant, Abdool 
passed by a mosque, where they were beginning 
prayers. He went to the door, but did not go in, 
lest they should raise a complaint against him for 
defiling their place. The reader began : ' O God, 
enlighten our hearts with the light of faith !' Ab- 
dool said aloud, ' Amen V The reader looked 
round with astonishment ; and after observing, be- 
gan again the same sentence ; to which Abdool 
again repeated aloud, ' Amen V The reader pro- 
ceeded, and Abdool was silent the rest of the ser- 
vice. When it was ended, some of them came 
round him, and inquired, ' You said Amen to the 
first sentence, but to no other ; why was this V 

" Abd. ' Because the first sentence was right, 
and was the prayer of holy men of old ; but the 
latter part is an invention of late date.' 

i4 Query.—' How do you make that appear V 



APPENDIX, 213 

" Abd. — 'You add the name of Aububeckar to 
that of Mohammed ; so that, by your own confes- 
sion, that is added since Mohammed's time.' 

" Some of them now suspected, and inquired if 
he were not such an one. This led to an under- 
standing, and a long dispute, in which he explain- 
ed to them many of our customs in worship, and 
made appeals to their conscience. One asked, if 
he were not affected by the contempt of his former 
friends, and wondered he could be so hardened as 
thus openly to contend for Christianity. 

" Abd. — ' I am, indeed, affected; and my heart 
by no means approves of your opposition ; and you 
know, that at Lukhnow, had such things been said 
to me, how I should have resisted ; but now I am 
withheld. I am no longer in my own keeping, but 
in the power of another.' 

" TJiese asked who that might be. He answer- 
ed, 'I am restrained, and enabled to bear your 
reproach, by the power of the Holy Spirit.' They 
were silent. 

" He went last to the old merchant, who has a 
house at Delhi, where he formerly resided, and 
with some of whose children Abdool was educated. 
He treated Abdool with more affection than any of 
the others : and was much moved by his exhorta- 
tions to seek salvation from Christ, at the eleventh 
hour. He, and two others of the whole crowd as-* 



214 APPENDIX. 

sembled, took a copy of St. Matthew's Gospel. 
Many might have been given away ; but where no 
disposition appeared to read them, it was thought 
best not to give them. 

" In one company, Abdool had occasion to men- 
tion his having been baptized by Mr. Brown. 
Some one inquired, ' Where is Mr. Brown now V 

" JLbd.—' He is where he has long intended to 
go. He is no longer in this world.' They said, 
' That is very well ! May you soon go after him, 
and no longer make this ado about your religion !' 

" Abel. — ' I do, indeed, desire to be where Mr. 
Brown is, and care not how soon I may be taken : 
but think not this religion depends on Mr. Brown, 
or on me : for if I were taken away, God can raise 
up one from among your own selves, to supply my 
place.' " 

"Feb. 5th. — An event occurred to day,*which 
Abdool related with great pleasure. At Monick- 
pore resides an aged man, of venerable appearance, 
with a flowing white beard, who is considered a 
holy man. He is the proprietor of several villages, 
and is a man of more than ordinary good nature 
He has many servants, and many disciples, and 
keeps open house for travellers. On these accounts 
he is much venerated by his neighbours. His place 
of worship is held very sacred, and many go 
thither as on a kind of pilgrimage. On Abdooi 



APPENDIX. 215 

looking in at the outer gate of the premises, one 
who was going in said, ' Come in, and pay your 
devotions.' 

" Jlbd.—' What place is this V 

" * It is a holy place ; come in.' 

" Jlbd. — i What advantage will arise from my 
going in V 

" Stranger, — ■ Why, every body goes.' 

" AbdL — 'Though every body should act sense- 
lessly, why should J V 

"On this the old man came out, and asked Ab- 
dool.who he was? 

" Jib d. — ' I am one of mankind, a servant of 
God.' 

" The master of the house pressed him to go in ; 
and ordered food to be brought for him, and for a 
Christian lad who was with him. On the food be- 
ing brought, he himself set it before them, and 
begged them to eat. > . 

"Jlbd. — 'Excuse me; I may not eat of your 
dishes : not that I have any objection to eat with 
you, or with any one : but I am a Christian ; and 
should I eat with you, your disciples would say 
you had lost caste.' 

" ' You are, at all events, a good man, for thus 
explaining to me, and I am happy to see you. 
Pray, have the English any books beside histories 
and books of amusement?' 



216 APPENDIX. 

" Abd. — ! Yes, surely ; they have the books of 
Moses, of the Prophets, and the Gospel. All the 
ancient books are in their possession.' 

" ' Yes ! the law, the psalms, the gospel, and 
the koran. I know there are four divine books.' 

" Abd. — ' Well ! all these are in the hands of 
the English ; though of these there are many books 
which you include under the name of the law ;' 
mentioning Isaiah and Daniel, and saying that Da- 
vid was the author of the Psalms. 

" ' Well,' said the old man, i I never knew that 
before ; and have the English any kind of worship 
among them V 

" Abd. — ' Certainly, they have : but they are 
taught to shut their door, and to pray to their 
Father who seeth in secret. They place no de- 
pendence on outward observances for salvation. 
Why, if you are to be judged according to your 
opinions, by your works, you must be condemned. 
You are required to have on clean clothes when 
you worship ; and that is easily obeyed : but then 
you are also to exclude the world from your mind, 
and to worship with the heart intensely fixed on 
God, (repeating a verse of the koran in proof.) 
Now, do you thus fulfil the precept V 

" The old man said, < Qh no !' 

" Abd. — ' Then are you not an offender V 

" ' Alas ! yes.' 



APPENDIX. 217 

" Abd.-—* Now the Christians are taught to be- 
lieve in Jesus, as enduring the shame and pain of 
death, on the cross, which they deserve ; and that, 
through faith in his sufferings, they shall be saved. 
They do indeed obey God ; yet not of themselves, 
but by his grace : and their obedience attends their 
salvation, though not as the price of it.' 

" The old man expressed great thankfulness ; 
said he had never heard such things before ; told 
his disciples these were true words, and begged a 
copy of the Gospel : for which, as Abdool had not 
taken one with him, he walked down, attended by 
his retinue. On parting, he begged Abdool would 
give him a sentence to remember. This is a cus- 
tom between spiritual guides, when they part after 
a visit ; and the most absurd expressions are com- 
mon among them on these occasions. Abdool said, 
* There is no such custom among Christians ; but 
I can tell you one sentence, which, if you remem- 
ber and believe, may be of service to you ; and that 
is, * Tli^ blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
cleanseth from all sin !' He requested Abdool 
would write to him, from time to time, on such 
subjects. 

" Feb. 13th. — Saturday, arrived at Cawnpore. 

On Sunday, Abdool' s brother, and his nephew, 

came from Lukhnow to meet him. They received 

him with great affection, and wished to eat with 

T 



218 APPENDIX. 

him, and to be one with him in all things. Ab- 
dool wisely would not suffer them, until they should 
understand the grounds of his conversion, when 
they might choose. They brought word that a 
great stir had been made in Lukhnow, on the re- 
port of his baptism reaching that place. One night 
a crowd collected at his father's house, and de- 
manded that he should openly renounce his apostate 
son, or they should suspect him also of becoming 
a Christian. He and the brothers declared they 
would not renounce Abdool, who always behaved 
kindly, and now wrote to them with great affection. 
A tumult ensued, which required the interference 
of the cutwal, or mayor ; and the report was car- 
ried to the Nabob's sons, if not to the Nabob him- 
self. The great men took the part of Abdool' s 
family, and threatened the other party. These 
circumstances were partly known ; and it had been 
determined as most advisable for Abdool, not to go 
to Lukhnow for the present ; but on being told of 
his family's continued good will and favourable 
disposition to the gospel, as also that his father, 
mother, brothers, and sisters, with their children, 
had determined on coming to see him, if he would 
not go over — the sisters also resolving to risk the 
displeasure of their husbands rather than not see 
him — Abdool thought he ought to go ; and we, 
commending him to the Lord, sent him, with his 



APPENDIX. 219 

brother and nephew, with one servant to bring us 
word of his welfare. 

" Abdool is well known here, and his return has 
excited much talk about religion. It would occupy- 
too much time to record every part of the conver- 
sation which he held the first day he went to the 
Bazar. It would explain exactly what is recorded 
of St. Paul's disputing daily in the market. Acts 
xvii. 17. 

" One circumstance seems worthy to be remem- 
bered, as it shows that the natives are well aware 
that Christianity requires diligence in business. A 
Faqueer by trade, on seeing Abdool, cried out, 
* Ho ! you seller of (your) faith, will you give me 
any thing V 

" Jibd.— ( - If you desire to purchase spiritual 
blessings, I may, perhaps, be able to supply you; 
but, as to worldly things, I have little to give. 
What I have, I labour for, and you are able to work 
for your provision, as well as I.' 

" The Faqueer replied, ' So I expected ; now 
you are become English, you would be for setting 
me to work. — I know their way is, work for your 
bread ! work for your bread !' 

" On the evening of Sunday the 21st, we were 
agreeably surprised by the return of Abdool from 
Lukhnow. He found the ill-will of his former 
friends so much excited, that he did not leave his 



220 APPENDIX. 

father's house, during the day he staid there. In 
the evening he went to a friend's house, and had 
much discussion on the subject of religion. He 
gave ten copies of St. Matthew to different persons 
who desired them, and prudently withdrew private- 
ly ; and praised God, he says, when he set foot on 
British territory. 

" Two days after his return, his father, two bro- 
thers, and two nephews, came over. Their preju- 
dices appear removed. They joined in prayer, 
both in private and in church, and declared their 
intention of embracing Christianity. Most of their 
inquiries were on the subject of our Lord's divini- 
ty, of which, after having seen the evidences from 
the Old and New Testaments, they seemed con- 
vinced. Their parting with Abdool was very af- 
fecting. The old man threw his arms round his 
son's neck, and wept plentifully. Abdool was 
much moved, and said, ' I pray, sir, forbear your 
tears. My Lord hath said, He that loveth brother, 
or sister, or father, or mother, more than me, is 
not worthy of me.' 

" ' Well v well,' said the old man ; ' but I am re- 
turning to calamity ; I know many will try to 
trouble me ; but I will give up these,' turning to 
his two grand-children, ' to be educated in Christi- 
anity ; I commit them to Jesus Christ ! God grant 
that that country (Lukhnow) may soon come into 



APPENDIX. 221 

the possession of the British ! Then we might 
live in peace.' Abdool reminded him, that God 
would deliver him, and that His peace is alone 
worth caring for. ■ True,' said the younger bro- 
ther, * and these lads we commit to Christ ! During 
the rains I also will come and stay some months 
with you.' " 

" March 18th, 1813.— Arrived at Agra. Abdool 
had come on some days before, and related several 
conversations with persons on the way, about re- 
ligion. Many copies of St. Matthew given away. 
" Sunday, March 21. — About three P. M. six 
native Christians, beside the children, &c. attended 
Hindoostanee worship in the fort, with whom Ab- 
dool read prayers, and expounded Luke v., it being 
the chapter in order of reading. In the evening 
many hundreds of the poor assembled near the fort, 
to whom Abdool read and explained briefly the ten 
commandments. Many cried out, 'These are true 
words ; and the curse of God will be upon us if 
we obey them not !' 

" March 22. — Set our native school in order, by 
appointing six of the head boys to learn English 
on the new British plan, that some or all of them 
might, through the divine blessing, become trans- 
lators. They all continue to learn the catechism 
in the mornings, with Persian during the day ; and 
attend morning and evening worship, in which Ab- 
T 2 



222 APPENDIX. 

dool officiates, by reading a chapter, and making 
remarks upon it, using some prayers from the lit- 
urgy afterward. 

" Sunday, March 28th. — At three o'clock, the 
native congregation of Christians consisted of about 
forty persons. Abdool explained the Gospel of St. 
Luke in order, and read and commented on the 
fourteenth chapter. Some of the people staid to 
inquire who he was, and said they felt their hearts 
much affected whilst he was addressing them. In 
the evening he went into the town. A great crowd 
collected to receive charity. Before he distributed it, 
he explained the original state and the fall of man. 
Many sat quietly ; evidently more taken up with 
the discourse, than with their own necessities. 
Daily some of the Mohammedans come to converse 
with Abdool. 

" April 3. — This evening he went to visit a very 
old man, accounted by the Mohammedans a holy 
man, and resorted to by many of them. He had been 
a scholar of Abdool' s grandfather, and had repeat- 
edly expressed a desire to see Abdool. Many were 
collected at the old man's house. Some asked, who 
Abdool was. The old man told them, mentioning 
many circumstances respecting the respectability 
of his family : among others, that Abdool's mo- 
ther's brother, is president of the Royal Moham- 
medan College at Delhi. They then asked Adbool 



APPENDIX. 223 

whence he now came ; and on being told that he 
was a certain Englishman's disciple, they inquired 
what he had learnt. He replied, he had gained 
some valuable information in religion. One of 
them said, ' What connexion has religion with the 
English ? Their native country is a small island, 
where they can know nothing ; and in this country, 
what benefit. in religion can you reap from them V 
Abdool told him, that he spoke thus, for want of 
information. The old man made a sign for Abdool 
to desist. Abdool said, ' If you are afraid I should 
be disgraced before this company, pray understand 
that I go into the Bazar to speak on these subjects, 
and am not ashamed of Christianity, that I should 
flatter, or deal in ambiguous language.' 

" ' Well,' said the old man, 'but now leave off, 
and come among us from time to time ; we shall 
be happy to see you.' 

" The discussion was thus interrupted, and no- 
thing satisfactory could afterward be introduced ; 
so Abdool rose to go. They again invited him to 
frequent their society ; he replied, he had not time 
to spare for mere visiting ; but if they would allow 
him to read a chapter in the gospel every time he 
came, he would wait on them as often as they 
pleased. They expressed a wish that this might 
be the case. Time will prove their sincerity." 

"Sunday, April £th. — In the afternoon, at three, 



224 APPENDIX. 

fewer native Christians attended Hindoostanee wor- 
ship ; but a great many servants of the gentlemen 
who live in the fort, came to hear, behaved very- 
orderly, and heard with much attention the expla- 
nation of the parable of the prodigal son. In the 
evening Abdool explained the Apostle's creed, to 
multitudes of natives, collected outside the fort, 
who all behaved respectfully to him. 

" April 5th. — After morning worship Abdool 
took the children, and went into the fort, to be 
ready for the afternoon. When all the children 
were collected, he read to them the story of * Hen- 
ry and his Bearer.' They all expressed great 
delight. When he had finished, the eldest of 
his nephews said, * Now I must of necessity be 
baptized.' 

" Sunday, April 11th. — About nine o'clock, 
while the native Christian children and servants 
were at worship, a venerable old man, who says he is 
ninety years of age, came from the Tage to Abdool' s. 
The tears began to roll down his cheeks, as they 
proceeded in the service : toward the end, he re- 
peated ' Amen' heartily, after each petition. When 
prayers were ended, he went up to Abdool, and 
embraced him ; who said, ' Do you know that I 
am a Christian ?' He answered, ' Yes : I heard 
so yesterday. I have often seen the English at 
worship, but never understood their language ; but 



APPENDIX. 225 

your prayers are most excellent, and my soul has 
been greatly refreshed by them.' 

" May 5th, — To-day a Mohammedan physician 
sent to request that Abdool would visit him in the 
evening. He accordingly went, and found him as 
an attendant on the Royal Family at Jondpore. He 
has leave to visit Agra, owing to sickness in his 
family, which required change of air. He had 
heard of Abdool's conversion yesterday, and could 
not believe he was the person he pretended to be. 
He offered to bet 2000 rupees, that a person of the 
family described, could not change his religion. 
He moreover said, if he were such a one, he must 
know him, for they were at school together ; and 
he would send for this person, (viz. Abdool Mes- 
seeh,) and prove him to be an impostor. On Ab- 
dool's going to his house, nothing could exceed the 
physician's astonishment, to find him the very per- 
son described, and his own school-fellow. They 
had a long and friendly conversation about their 
former intercourse, and read several chapters in St. 
Matthew, and other parts of the New Testament. 
On Abdool's answering his objections, he said, 
' This is the way I understand you did yesterday, 
silencing every body by reference to their own cus- 
toms : and so I perceive Islam will not stand.' He 
took a copy of St. Matthew, and desired to have 
the whole New Testament. 



226 APPENDIX. 

" Sunday, May, 9th. — In the evening, out of 
the fort, a greater number than ever was collected, 
with evident desire to hear the Word. They check- 
ed one another, in order to preserve silence. One, 
impatient at the noise around him, cried aloud, 
4 Keep silence, ye accursed, and let us hear the 
Word ! Ye have six days in the week, have ye 
not, to babble and talk?' The subject was, s This 
is a faithful saying. 9 Several were in tears. One 
man came forward, and declared he would be a 
Christian. He was sick, had long been ill, did not 
expect to live long, and these words comforted 
him. He had never before heard such comfortable 
words. 

" One evening, during the preceding week, Ab- 
dool went into the city. A number of people col- 
lected round him, and entered into conversation ; at 
length, they begged that he would sit down, and 
read them a chapter. He did so, and read the 
eleventh of John. One of them told him, « if you 
would have us become Christians, you must come 
among us, and teach us the gospel. Come and live 
among us, and we will attend you daily.' 

" Sunday, June 6th. — The attendance in the 
fort was as usual ; and in the evening, without the 
fort, the crowd was beyond all former example. 
Even the tops of some of the houses, were covered 
with Mohammedans ; but those of the crowd who 



APPENDIX. 227 

could not hear, by their pressing and eagerness to 
get forward, prevented much of what Abdool said 
from being heard. 

" June 7 th. — The whole day was passed by 
Abdool in the city ; and his house was like an ex- 
change, from morning till night. More copies of 
the scriptures were sought for ; and one moonshee 
began to read St. Matthew with Abdool. Three 
children were brought to school, and the people 
speak with much admiration of the establishment 
of a free school. 

"June 9th. — Numbers of people visited Abdool 
again to-day, and many interesting conversations 
took place. An old Mohammedan, uncle to one 
of the principal men in the city, was asked, on go- 
ing away, what he thought of Abdool. He an- 
swered, ' What can I say ? He says nothing amiss ; 
and nothing can be objected to the Gospel; what 
can I say ?' 

" June 10th. — To-day the doctrine of Christ 
witnessed a triumph. For three weeks past, a fa- 
queer, of the Jogi tribe, has come frequently to our 
morning worship, in the school. On Tuesday the 
chapter to be read in order was John xvii. The 
subject of it, and our Lord's manner toward his 
disciples, arrested the attention of the Jogi, and the 
tears flowed plentifully down his cheeks. To-day 
he brought his wife and child ; said he was a con- 



228 APPENDIX. 

vert to Jesus, without reserve ; and began of him- 
self to take off his Faqueer's dress. He first took 
the beads from off his neck ; then broke the string 
to which the charm given him by his gooroo was 
suspended ; then broke off an iron ring worn round 
his waist, and to which an iron rod, about two feet 
long, was attached. He then put on some old 
clothes, which we had by us, and said, now he 
wished to be instructed in the Gospel, and to get 
employment. A rupee was given to procure food 
for the family, with which the wife went and 
bought a spinning wheels saying, she would spin 
and earn their livelihood. These are wonders in 
the history of a Hindoo. The whole family after- 
ward ate their dinner with Abdool, of their own 
accord. 

" To-day, also, an old woman who has constant- 
ly heard Abdool on Sundays, brought her little all 
from the house of a Mohammedan, where she had 
long lived, and took up her abode among the Chris- 
tians, expressing a heart-affecting sense of her value 
for the Gospel of Christ. 

" A leper too, who has spent years in religious 
observances, without finding rest to his mind, and 
who has been some time in constant attendance on 
the means of grace, took up his abode with us, 
saying, Jesus would cure the inward leprosy of his 
soul. 



APPENDIX, 229 

"The old soldier also, and his wife and son, 
have cast in their lot with us. 

" The school to-day increased to ten, expressly 
under the idea that it is a Christian institution. 

"Jane 12th. — The whole city seems moved 
with this new thing which is come unto them ; but 
not a tongue stirs in opposition. As a proof of 
this, the Mooftee of the court, whose father is Kha- 
zee ol Kazat, or Native Chief Justice of the Com- 
pany's head court in Calcutta, sent to beg that 
Abdool would forget the attempt that had been made 
by his relatives in Calcutta, to procure his impri- 
sonment, and would visit him, (the Mooftee,) and 
be friends with him. 

"It would be no easy task to record all the in- 
teresting discussions which have taken place, during 
these two days, between Abdool and the principal 
Mohammedans in the city. One of them observed, 
that Abdool was so provided with armour, that 
none of their weapons (arguments) could reach 
him. 

" June 18th. — To-day, Abdool was informed, 
that the kazee (judge) is taking pains to prevent 
the children from coming to school, and the people 
from visiting him. Some of the children said to 
him, on his forbidding them to go to school to 
Abdool, ' Will you then instruct us gratis, as he 
does r 

U 



230 APPENDIX. 

" June 25th. — Yesterday, as Abdool was read- 
ing and explaining Acts iv. at his house in the city, 
an extraordinary instance of Divine power attend- 
ing the Word, appeared. A youth about fifteen, a 
Brahmin of the Gour caste, had come, among 
others, to see and hear this new thing. Abdool 
observed him very attentive ; and as he proceeded, 
and was explaining verse 12, ' Neither is there sal- 
vation in any other, for there is none other name 
given among men, whereby we can be saved,' the 
lad seemed greatly agitated, and breaking off his 
Brahmin's cord, threw it away. All who were 
present observed what he did, but no notice was 
then taken. After the congregation went away, the 
lad remained ; said he would embrace the Christian 
religion, and, in short, of his own accord ate with 
Abdool, and came home with him in the evening." 

"July 6th. — To-day the Rajah Ram Narian 
passed most of the day here. He is son of the 
brother of the well known Cheyt Sing, Rajah of 
Benares, who was finally set aside from the rajah- 
ship by the Honourable Company, on the murder 
of Mr. Cherry, and the present family placed on 
the musnud, who are of the female line. On June 
9th, this Rajah Ram Narian called upon me, (Rev. 
Mr. Corrie.) He had passed the greatest part of 
a day at Cawnpore, with the late Mr. Martyn, 
with whom I was then an inmate. Since then, he 



APPENDIX. 231 

has been visiting about among the Mahratta princes ; 
and on arriving here, and hearing of my being here, 
he came to call upon me. After some time, he en- 
tered into a detail of the misfortunes of his family. 
I heard him out, and then endeavoured to show 
him, that all worldly expectations were thus de- 
luding ; and that, though we should gain our end 
in the world, we must leave it, and go to give ac- 
count to God : whilst those, who know and love 
the true God, have a never-failing portion. Abdool, 
who was present, took up the subject. The young 
man was roused to attention, came to see us day 
after day, and expressed very freely in public his 
approbation of the Gospel, becoming daily more 
serious and earnest in his religious inquiries. At 
length, he became suspected of an inclination to 
Christianity. Crowds, both of Hindoos and Mus- 
sulmans, visited him daily, to dissuade him from 
associating with Abdool. On the 2d inst., he took 
up his abode with Abdool, in the city ; and now, 
the whole city seemed moved. Day and night, he 
was beset by people, many of whom had never 
seen him, or heard of him until now ; and the agi- 
tation of mind occasioned thereby, made him quite 
unwell. To-day he is much indisposed, yet came 
out to see me. After some previous conversation, 
I said to him, ' If your intention of embracing 
Christianity be sincere, I do most heartily invite 



232 APPENDIX. 

you to occupy these rooms, 'in which we were sit- 
ting, 'and in all respects, to consider me as a bro- 
ther : only I am anxious that no worldly motive 
should enter into your resolutions, and that no one 
should be able to say, you were influenced by tem- 
poral considerations.' He answered, very distinctly 
and deliberately, ' Sir, in respect of name, what 
can I propose to myself by the change ? My fami- 
ly is the chief among the Hindoos, being Brahmins, 
and lords of the holy city. In respect to provision, 
you know how I have lived, and could still live :* 
—he told me before, that he could collect 400 ru- 
pees a month, and subsistence for three or four 
hundred followers among the Mahratta princes : — 
'What earthly end can I, have in view? But, 
among the Hindoos or Mohammedans, I never 
heard of any whose birth, life, death, resurrection, 
and ascension, can be compared with Jesus. I per- 
ceive he is the only Saviour, and I see I may ob- 
tain remission of sins through him.' 

" July 8th.— In consequence of the above visit, 
the friends and adherents of the Rajah became quite 
violent with him, and threatened, by some means 
or other, to put an end to his life. They threaten- 
ed Abdool also, who quietly, but resolutely an- 
swered, i If you should accomplish my death, it 
would be a cause of joy to me, as bringing me at 
once to Him whose I am ; but, be assured, your 



APPENDIX. 233 

lives would be forfeited to the law, and at the 
throne of God, you would find Raim,* or any other 
you depend upon, quite unable to save you from 
the guilt of murder.' They were dismayed at his 
resolution, and have kept aloof from him since ; 
but have persuaded the Rajah to make a journey to 
Gualier, where another widow of Cheyt Sing's is, 
and of a brother of his own. He says he will come 
back alone shortly ; appears in deep distress ; and 
said to-day, « I go with them because I fear they 
will otherwise murder me ; but I know, if I do not 
become a Christian, I shall go to hell with my 
eyes open. My faith is in Jesus Christ alone, and 
beside him there is no Saviour. ' A Mohammedan 
in the service of the Rajah has been the chief op- 
poser, and has tried to get others to say that Ab- 
dool wished to compel people to become Christians. 
A Molwee, who lives near, and to whom he first 
addressed himself, told him at once he lied, and 
was an infidel for opposing an idolater who wished 
to believe in revelation, though not in Mohammed. 
The Hindoos to whom he applied, said he was mad ; 
that they saw and heard all that passed in Abdool's 
house, and saw no violence offered to any one. 
One Hindoo said, ' I hear him forbid people to kill, 
or to commit adultery, or to steal, or to tell lies : 
if this be Christianity, it is a good religion ; there 

* An idol. » 

u2 



234 APPENDIX. 

are no such good words even in the Sanscrit 
books.' 

"July llth: — A man from a neighbouring vil- 
lage was present to-day, who has been a constant 
attendant for some time. He was asked wliy he 
had expressed a wish to become a Christian ? He 
answered, ' For the sake of salvation.' What had 
he heard, that should induce him to hope for salva- 
tion in Christianity? He said, 'He had never 
heard of any whose birth corresponded with that 
of Christ ; that to raise the dead, and himself to 
rise from the dead, proved him to be the Son of 
God, and able to give remission of sins. He to-day 
took his meal with the Christians, by which his 
caste is gone. 

" July 24th.— To-day a Mohammedan from Berth- 
pore came, who is physician to the Rajah's family. 
He had long ago perused the Pentateuch in Arabic, 
lent him by a Roman Catholic priest, who lived 
with General Duboin. About two years ago, it 
came into his mind to search for truth. The 
irreconcilable contradictions among the different 
Mohammedan sects, struck him powerfully, and 
convinced him that truth was not with them. He 
read in the Koran, that Christ is the Spirit of God. 
This gave him a high idea of our Saviour. He 
took an opportunity of coming to Agra soon after 
that time, when he visited Mr. C. the Baptist mis- 



APPENDIX. 235 

sionary, who urged him to an immediate profession 
of Christianity. This he was not prepared for, but 
took a copy of St. Matthew and St. Mark, in Per- 
sian, translated by Sabat, and went back to Berth- 
pore. There he has been until the present time, 
fully persuaded of the truth of Christianity, and 
the divinity of Christ, from the perusal of the above 
translation, but desirous of meeting with some of 
his own countrymen, who could inform him fur- 
ther ; he at length heard of Abdool, and of the kind- 
ness and inorTensiveness of his manners. ' This,' 
said he, 'is the way of that religion.' And on 
Monday, he came over on purpose to meet with 
Abdool. He was led to the house of a Molwee, 
who teaches our Christian boys Arabic, and who is 
very favourable to the truth ; so that his introduc- 
tion to Abdool was thus made easy. He now 
wishes to be baptized ; seems less than any native 
whom I have seen, to consult with flesh and blood ; 
said he desired only to be great in the sight of God, 
and, if it were his will, to be among the first fruits 
of Hindoostan ; for he is sure that all the land will 
become Christian, and he desires to give himself 
to labour to spread the Gospel. He has a son 
eighteen years old, whom he has made acquainted 
with the change passing in his mind ; and who, he 
says, is, equally with himself, disposed to embrace 
the .Gospel. He has gone back to bring this son, 



236 APPENDIX. 

and what property he has, that he may give him- 
self wholly to the work of the Lord. 

" July 18th. — This afternoon the above person 
made his appearance, with his son, at worship in 
the city. He had thought, he said, of sending his 
son first : but afterward reflected, ' This is not a 
work to be delayed, or trifled with.' He publicly 
professed, before all the people assembled, that he 
was come expressly to receive baptism. He laid 
aside his turban, and knelt down to prayer with the 
Christian part of the assembly. 

"July 23. — To-day, Abdool's eldest nephew, af- 
ter many solicitations, was examined for baptism. 
So long since as the beginning of May, he had 
been observed diligent in secret duties ; and the 
questions which he asked, discovered an awakened 
conscience. On Monday last, he began to read 
the Scriptures, and pray with the Catechumens. 
This was after repeated requests to be allowed to 
do so, and diligent application to private reading of 
the Scriptures. To-day he was asked, * Why do 
you wish to be baptized ?' He said, ' Because I 
am conscious of many and great sins, and I wish 
to enter on the way of forgiveness.' 

" Ques. — 'But perhaps the English government 
may not always remain in this land ; and you know, 
in that case, the Hindoos and Mohammedans would 
persecute you > what would you do V 



APPENDIX. 237 

" Jlns.—' Certainly, since they despised, and 
persecuted, and ill-treated the Saviour, I can expect 
no other ; but, through his help, I would remain 
firm.' 

" July 24th. — During the whole of this week, 
the Hugeem from Berthpore has attended daily with 
his son. The Epistle to the Hebrews was appoint- 
ed to be read, to show him the connexion between 
the Old and New Testaments. As we went on, 
his attention was evidently attracted by the pecu- 
liar truths of the Gospel— the divinity of Christ — 
his suitableness, as God, to be a Saviour — the suf- 
ficiency of his sacrifice, and the extent of it, as 
reaching to sins under the former dispensation also. 
The passages connected with these subjects, drew 
from him many expressions indicative of a truly 
enlightened mind. He has been daily also inquir- 
ing about baptism ; and as the subject has been on 
his mind above two years, and he is now evidently 
decided in his choice, it was agreed to baptize him 
to-morrow. After talking of his family, I asked 
if he was aware of any thing in his own history 
for which God might be justly displeased with 
him. He answered, 'What have I done, that de- 
serves the name of virtue, all my days ? If I have 
done any thing good at all, it is this acceptance 
of the truth.'" 

Bishop Heber makes mention of Messeeh, in 



238 APPENDIX. 

his Journal, near Agra, January 12th, 1825, as 
follows : — 

"Abdool Messeeh breakfasted this morning at 
Mr. Irving's ; he is a very fine old man, with a 
magnificent grey beard, and much more gentlemanly 
manners, than any Christian native whom I have 
seen. His rank, indeed, previous to his conver- 
sion, was rather elevated, since he was master of 
the jewels to the court of Oude, an appointment of 
higher estimation in eastern palaces, than in those 
of Europe, and the holder of which has always a 
high salary. Abdool Messeeh's present appoint- 
ments, as Christian missionary, are sixty rupees a 
month,* and of this, he gives away at least half. 
Who can dare to say, that this man has changed 
his faith from any interested motives ? He is a very 
good Hindoostanee, Persian, and Arabic scholar, 
but knows no English. There is a small congre- 
gation of native Christians, converted under Mr. 
Corrie, when he was chaplain at Agra, and now 
kept together by Abdool Messeeh. The earnest de- 
sire of this good man is, to be ordained a clergyman 
of the church of England ; and if God spares his 
life and mine, I hope, during the next autumn, to 
confer orders on him. He is every way fit. for 
them, and is a most sincere Christian, quite free, 
so far as I could observe, from all conceit or enthu* 
* A rupee is worth about fifty cents, 



APPENDIX- 239 

siasm. His long eastern dress, his long grey beard, 
and his calm, resigned countenance, give him al- 
ready almost the air of an apostle." 

In that year he was much afflicted by losing the 
use of his limbs by the palsy ; ' but,' said he, ' I 
can move about in a carriage, and God grants me 
the faculty of speech. Through his blessing, I trust 
I shall be permitted, until death, to declare the 
truths of the gospel. When, at length, this sinful 
body of mine is dead, and shall have put on im- 
mortality, may I be found among the least of the 
blessed !' 

Thus he maintained a consistent Christian life, 
and his closing hours were brightened with Chris- 
tian hope. 

" He became ill ; and Dr. Luxmore, finding him 
in a dying condition, from mortification, had him 
conveyed to his own house, where he was supplied 
with suitable medicine, nourishment, and attend- 
ance, to the last. He expressed his deep gratitude 
for this change of residence ; for he said, that had 
he died at home among his own relations, they per- 
haps would have interred his remains according to 
the ceremonies of their own erroneous faith : ' But 
now,' said he, ' Christian brethren will bury me.' 
He expressed himself as perfectly resigned ; and 
said that death had no terrors for him, for that his 
Saviour had deprived it of its sting. He expressed 



240 APPENDIX. 

to a friend who attended on him, his gratitude for 
the kind attention of Mr. Ricketts, the Resident, 
saying, ' See the fruits of Christian love !' The 
day before his death, he requested his friends to 
write his will. A house which the Resident had 
enabled him to purchase, he left to his mother ; his 
books to the Bible Society, and his clothes to a 
nephew. After concluding these formalities, he 
said, 'Thanks be to God, I have done with this 
world ! and with regard to my mother,' putting his 
hands in a supplicating posture, 'I commend her 
to God:' then, laying his hand upon his nephew, 
he said to his friend, ' Speak to the Resident, that 
no one be allowed to injure him :' then desiring his 
friend to come near him, and putting his hands in 
an attitude of prayer, he said, ' Father, Son, and 

Holy Ghost, be gracious to — i ' 

" On one occasion he inquired after a man who 
had been with him for some time for religious in- 
struction ; and being told he was at hand, desired 
he might be called. On his approach, he questioned 
him on some points of religion, and explained to 
him the Lord's Prayer throughout : he spoke of 
his intention to baptize him, should he recover ; 
and desired, that, in the event of his death, a cleri- 
cal friend might be requested to do so. Shortly be- 
fore he expired, being told that the New Testa- 
ment was at hand, at his desire, the fourth chapter 



APPENDIX. 241 

of St. John was read to him ; at the conclusion of 
which, he said, * Thanks be to God!' A hymn, 
which he had composed a short time before, was 
then sung, and of which the following is a para- 
phrase : — 

Blest Saviour of the world ! who art 

Beloved supremely still by me, 
Now, in thy ever-loving heart, 

Oh let me not forgotten be ! 

Of all that blooms in earthly bower, 

Or in ethereal field that blows, 
Of every sweet and fragrant flower, 

Thou art the fairest, Sharon's rose ! 

Long passed away youth's cheerful morn, 

And age's closing hours come on — 
These grieve me not — my soul is torn 

By memory of my sins alone. 

Blest Saviour of the world ! who art 

Beloved supremely still by me, 
Now, in thy ever-loving heart, 

Oh let me not forgotten be t 

11 He joined in singing this hymn, and desired 
that it might be sung a second time : but he could 
no longer articulate distinctly, and soon became in- 
sensible to every thing around him. He lay, 
seemingly in perfect ease, till the evening ; when 
he raised his head from the pillow, and with his 
left hand took hold of the hand of his friend — then 
gently withdrew it — and breathed his last." 
X 



242 APPENDIX 



Hymn referred to on page 52. 

The God of Abraham praise, 
Who reigns enthroned above ; 
Ancient of everlasting days, 
And God of love ! 
Jehovah, great I am ! 
By earth and heaven confessed, 
I bow and bless the sacred name, 
For ever blessed. 

The God of Abraham praise, 
At whose supreme command, 
From earth I rise, and seek the joys 
At his right hand : 
I all on earth forsake, 
Its wisdom, fame, and power : 
And him my only portion make, 
My shield and tower. 

The God of Abraham praise, 
Whose all-sufficient grace 
Shall guide me, all my happy days, 
In all his ways : 
He calls a worm his friend ! 
He calls himself my God ! 
And he shall save me to the end, 
Through Jesus' blood. 



APPENDIX. 243 

He by himself hath sworn ; 
I on his oath depend ; 
I shall, on eagles' wings upborne, 
To heaven ascend ; 
I shall behold his face, 
I shall his power adore ; 
And sing the wonders of his grace 
For evermore ! 

Though nature's strength decay, 
And earth and hell withstand, 
To Canaan's bounds I urge my way, 
At God's command : 
The watery deep I pass, 
With Jesus in my view, 
And through the howling wilderness 
My way pursue* 

The goodly land I see, 
With peace and plenty blest ; 
The land of sacred liberty, 
And endless rest : 
There milk and honey flow, 
And oil and wine abound ; 
And trees of life for ever grow, 
With mercy crowned. 

There dwells the Lord our King, 
The Lord our righteousness I 



244 APPENDIX. 

Triumphant o'er the world and sin, 
The Prince of Peace ! 
On Sion's sacred height, 
His kingdom still maintains ; 
And glorious, with his saints in light, 
For ever reigns. 

The ransomed nations bow 
Before the Saviour's face, 
Joyful their radiant crowns they throw 
O'erwhelmed with grace : 
He shows his scars of love ; 
They kindle to a flame, 
And sound through all the worlds above, 
" The atoning Lamb !" 

The whole triumphant host 
Give thanks to God on high, 
" Hail Father, Son and Holy Ghost !" 
They ever cry : 
Hail Abraham's God and mine ! 
I join the heavenly lays ; 
All might and majesty are thine, 
And endless praise ! 



APPENDIX. 245 



Hymn referred to on page 59. 

O'er the gloomy hills of darkness, 
Look, my soul, be still and gaze ; 

All the promises do travail 
With a glorious day of grace : 
Blessed Jubilee, 

Let thy glorious morning dawn ! 

Kingdoms wide, that sit in darkness, 
Grant them, Lord, the glorious light ; 

And from eastern coast to western, 
May the morning chase the night ; 
And redemption, 

Freely purchased win the day ' 

Fly abroad, thou mighty gospel 

Win and conquer, never cease ; 
May thy lasting wide dominions, 
Multiply, and still increase ! 
Sway thy sceptre, 
Saviour ! all the world around. 
x2 



246 APPENDIX- 

Verse alluded to on page 192 ; paraphrased by Mr 
Newton, from the Latin. 

In desert woods with thee, my God, 
Where human footsteps never trod, 

How happy could I be ! 
Thou my repose from care, my light 
Amidst the darkness of the night, 

In solitude my company. 



THE END. 



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